Bottle Fame and Brew Glory
by Rannaro
Summary: Not satisfied with "Deathly Hallows?" This alternate version of Book Seven was written at the same time that JKR was writing DH, but has a different take on the story and contains an account of Snape's most unique Halloween celebration.
1. Chapter 1 – The Prisoner

**Introduction**

The following was originally intended to be a "Book Seven" in the series _A Difference in the Family: The Snape Chronicles._ It was written in June and July of 2006, while JKR was still writing Deathly Hallows, and it is now an Alternate Universe story. As none of the information in Deathly Hallows was yet available, there is a large amount of information from that book that the reader will have to discard.

While it is recommended that the story _A Difference in the Family: The Snape Chronicles_ be read first in order to understand all the references, that is not essential_._ Background on the relationship of Snape and Yaxley is available in chapters 55-58 _(Too Much for Granted)_ of that story_._ This story picks up right at the end of chapter 58 as Snape, fleeing Hogwarts after casting the Killing Curse on Dumbledore, is dueling Harry Potter. He is trying to get Draco to a safe house in Oxford, where he can remove the boy's dark mark, and then to spirit Draco and his mother out of England.

In the original, pre-DH versions of _A Difference in the Family_ and _Too Much for Granted_, Regulus Black was apprehended and killed by Voldemort for his theft of the locket horcrux, Voldemort was aware of Dumbledore's destruction of the ring horcrux and planned a trap for him, Dumbledore was exploring occult symbolism for a clue to the remaining horcruxes, none of which were Nagini… quite a large number of details were different. The reader is asked to accept these differences and let the story flow without any nods at all to the canon of Deathly Hallows. My original readers will recall that it was never meant to conform to canon in the first place. Have fun.

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**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: The Prisoner**

"Kill me, then. Kill me like you killed him, you coward..."

His once safe world shattered, his only refuge destroyed, torment and death waiting beyond the gate, Snape cracked. "Don't call me coward!" he screamed, and lashed out at Potter in fury.

What might have happened then he would never know, for Hagrid's hippogriff swooped down in Potter's defense, slashing at Snape's face and arm. Breaking away, Snape ran for the gate, grabbed Draco, and disapparated, heading for Oxford.

They apparated into the shielded apartment, where Malfoy immediately wrenched himself free from Snape's grasp. "Let go of me!" he shouted at Snape. "Get your hands off me! You killed him! He was going to help me! You murdered him!"

Snape glanced around the room, wondering where Yaxley was, then faced Malfoy. "Don't be silly. There were four Death Eaters…"

"Five! And the fifth one killed him!"

"Draco, calm yourself. I thought you wanted him dead."

"He was going to help me… help my mother… help us get out!"

"He couldn't help anyone. Not there. You'd have died, too."

Malfoy made a sudden move to the door, but Snape blocked him. Here was a whole new problem, for Snape hadn't thought that Malfoy might want to escape. The boy was thin, but at least as tall as he was. With a silent command, Snape took Malfoy's wand away.

"Give me my wand! You can't keep me here. I've got to go to the Dark Lord and tell him…"

"He wants you dead. You know that. You and your whole family. You go back and he'll kill you."

"That's a lie!"

"He wanted you to die killing Dumbledore. Two at a blow. He told me."

"He'll kill my mother!"

"Not if we move fast. I have to take that mark off your arm. Otherwise he'll strike you through it."

"Traitor! You betrayed Dumbledore! You betray the Dark Lord! You'll betray me! Is there anyone you won't betray?" Malfoy stared suddenly at his left arm, then looked up at Snape in horror. "He's calling. Let me go!"

Snape felt the burning, too, but ignored it. "You can't go, Draco. He'll kill you. Let me take…"

Malfoy lunged at him, shoving Snape against the table and diving for the door. The shield was calibrated to Malfoy's DNA and wouldn't hold him. Snape whipped out his wand and stunned the boy, catching him as he fell and easing him to the floor. The burning in his arm was intensifying, and he had no time to lose. Where was Yaxley?

Quickly Snape moved Malfoy into the next room and onto a bed. There he pushed the sleeve of his robes away from the forearm and paused at what he saw. Malfoy bore no dark mark. The brand on his arm was tiny and round, less than an inch in diameter. _Death Eater junior grade._ _Maybe the Dark Lord felt you unworthy of the full mark. It makes my job easier._

Sweat beaded Snape's brow, and he was having trouble focusing. Seizing a bottle of alcohol and the small knife kit, he extracted a scalpel and knelt close to Malfoy's arm, swabbing both it and the knife with the alcohol to disinfect them. Then, his own hands beginning to shake, he cut a circle around the Dark Lord's mark and smoothly sliced the skin away from the flesh. It came off clean. The mark was on the surface only; it didn't extend into the arm. A quick healing spell staunched the flow of blood, and it was done. Malfoy was safe.

Snape was not safe. The fire in his arm spiked and flared with stunning intensity, and all Snape could think was _He knows. The Dark Lord knows I just removed Malfoy's mark. _He struggled to his feet and staggered back into the first room, clutching the knife kit, trying desperately to concentrate. _Open the window. Light the charcoal. Put the iron in the fire…_ Spells accomplished each step, but it was already too late.

Flame shot through Snape's left shoulder and across his chest, spreading into his whole body, and he dropped the kit, sending scalpels scattering across the floor. The pain was blinding, all-encompassing. Dropping to his knees, Snape groped for the scalpels, found one, and began madly slashing at the dark mark through the sleeve of his robe. Blood welled through the fabric, but vision blurred, and Snape could no longer see what he was doing.

He was on fire, twisting and writhing on the floor in agony, consumed by the fury of the Dark Lord's wrath, locked into his punishment until the Dark Lord should tire of the sport and allow him to die.

Into his torment there intruded the soft presence of gray mist. Soothing dewdrops coalesced in a corner of Snape's mind and nudged him with cooling persistence. Like sea fog it damped the fire that ate at Snape's brain, and he was able to open his eyes and look at it – a shimmering silver shadow that nudged him again and spoke inside his mind.

"_If you need me, boyo, tell me where you are, and I'll come get you."_

The gruff voice cleared Snape's thoughts for a second, just a second, and in that second he launched a tiny, feeble, gray fox southeast toward London, then fell back into the fire and was lost.

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_He drifted in clouds of fire and smoke, time and place unknown, for as long as eternity lasted. Pain and thirst fringed all the world, and he would have struggled to escape from it if he'd had any strength at all. Having none, he existed, and the pain worked its will on him in the timeless infinity of fire…_

_Once, and once only, he surfaced into cool air, where Yaxley beamed down on him and chided him with laziness – "Are you going to sleep forever" – before he sank again into the lake of fire and let it carry him where it willed…_

_Then pain was gone, and he floated in gossamer, wrapped in cotton batting, without sight, or hearing, or touch…_

_He opened his eyes to a blurred and unknowable world, shapes in light and darkness flitting around him as he rocked his head from side to side. A voice he knew, a woman's voice, asked "Have you come back to us?" then drifted away to say again from a great distance through a funnel, "Alastor, I think…" but the cotton wrapped him and carried him away from the light and the sound…_

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Severus woke to an unfamiliar room bathed in the clear light of morning. He tried to move, only to find that his left arm weighted him down like a dead thing pulling at his side, and he moaned with the pain that movement cost him.

A figure intruded on the edge of vision, and Severus turned his head to the right to look at it. It was Remus. Severus blinked a few times, trying to remember why Remus would be sitting next to him, then gave it up as costing too much effort.

"How are you feeling?"

Not sure the question was addressed to him, and not feeling anything anyway except for the weight on his arm, Severus didn't answer. He was tired, so tired… And thirsty.

Remus seemed to understand, for he slipped an arm under Severus's shoulders and helped him to a semi-seated position, then held a cup to his mouth. Severus drank the water gratefully until the cup was taken away with the admonition, "We don't want to make you sick."

Then Remus left, to speak from the doorway a hundred miles away, "Alastor, I think he's awake now."

A great bulk positioned itself at Severus's side, and a gruff voice, like cool water in the desert, asked, "What's your name? Do you remember your name?"

Severus stared up into the great blue eye. "Russ," he answered.

"That doesn't sound good. Look at me now. Do you know who I am?"

Trying to focus, Severus responded, "You… selling vacations… to Azkaban."

"Ha! excellent. Now, what's your name?"

"Russ. Russ Snape."

"Interesting. Is Russ short for anything?"

"Yes… Severus. Severus…"

"Did you know?"

"No," answered Remus. "I had no idea."

Severus was drifting now, falling back through the cotton batting into the sightless, soundless world.

"Let him sleep," Moody said as Severus drifted off. "He's had a bad few weeks. At least he looks like he's really sleeping – not the coma he was in."

"I'll call you if there's a change," Remus replied, and then Severus heard no more of the conversation.

Over the next few days, Severus's periods of wakefulness lengthened, and they began to feed him broth, juice, and then purees and soft soups to get his stomach used to food again. Moody and Remus were there all the time, it seemed, and sometimes Tonks. There were others who stayed outside the room, though Moody assured Severus that they'd meet as soon as he was strong enough.

No one questioned him, which was lucky because at first Severus had trouble remembering. The past was like a great, dark ocean. Certain small, light things flitted through the surface waters where the sun glinted, but down in the depths there lurked a dreaded monster.

When the first questions came, they were Severus's questions. "What happened to my arm?"

"You came close to cutting it off. There was so much blood I thought at first you severed an artery and we were too late. It's one of the reasons you've been 'out of touch' for a while, but it gave us the clue what to do to save you. You'd been trying to get rid of the mark. We finished the job and broke the connection. Watch." Moody paused for effect, then pronounced with a theatrical flourish the name 'Voldemort.'

Severus stared up at him, uncomprehending, then realization dawned. "It didn't hurt."

"See, he's gone. At least from you."

Memory returned of the apartment in Oxford and what had happened there. "Where's Draco? Is he all right?"

"He's fine. You did a neat job on his arm, especially seeing as you were probably under attack by that time yourself."

"I think he… Vol… you know… felt it when I cut off Draco's mark. That's when it got really bad. What about Nar… Draco's mother."

"Safe, too. We got a team into Wiltshire right away. Got her out before Voldemort thought of it. It wasn't easy. Seems the lady didn't want to go. Bit of a wildcat when she's upset. She calmed down when she saw Draco and knew he was safe."

Other questions began to surface. "How did you get in? The rooms were shielded."

Moody grinned. "Got a surprise for you." He stood and went to the door of the bedroom. "Nigel, I think he's ready to see you now."

Moody stood aside, and Yaxley walked into the room.

Comprehension again took a moment. "What are you doing here?"

Yaxley tilted his head toward Moody. "I work for him. Why do you think Cardiff never did anything important?"

"I didn't know."

"Neither did I. About you, I mean. I knew there was something special about you, and that I was supposed to help you with things like the shields, but Alastor never told me everything. What you don't know, you can't tell."

Severus looked at Yaxley's arm and then at the massive bandages that swathed his own. "Do you…?"

"Still have mine? Yeah, I do. Officially I'm a prisoner. That's what the Dark Lord thinks." He nodded at Moody. "If they need me to go back, I can 'escape.'"

"Then you… didn't…"

In the sunless depths of memory, the monster stirred. A nameless fear woke in Severus's chest, and he looked around the room in panic. Moody glanced over at Remus, who took something off a side table.

"You were… there… fighting… the stairs… there was a shield…" Severus tried to sit up, to get out of the bed, and Moody moved quickly to restrain him, nodding to Remus as he did so. Then Severus was on a dark spiral staircase, struggling to climb as unseen hands held him back. He didn't know what was at the top of the stairs, just that someone was calling him. He fought against the hands that blocked his movement. "Help him… I have to help him! I have to get to him! He's up there! He needs me!"

The needle slid painlessly into his right arm, and then the staircase faded as Severus once again slipped into the cotton batting and slept peacefully.

Two days later, Moody, Yaxley, and Remus gathered in the bedroom. Severus was sitting up at last and feeling quite a bit stronger. It did not help, however, to see that Remus was carrying a hypodermic needle.

"What's that?" Severus asked Remus.

"We can't take you to St. Mungo's or bring Pomfrey here, so we've had to resort to a little muggle technology. It's a needle."

"I know that. What's in it."

"Tranquilizer," said Moody. "You get kind of funny when certain topics come up, and we need to talk about them."

"I don't want you sticking drugs in me."

"We've tried talking, and you keep getting hysterical. What's the matter? Don't you trust me? Relax now, boyo, I don't want to have to tie you down."

With the choice put to him like that, Severus had little option but to agree. It was obvious from the way Remus handled the needle that he'd already done this several times. After a few minutes, Severus began to feel very calm and relaxed.

Moody looked over at Yaxley and nodded.

"I'm going to talk about the Astronomy Tower," Yaxley said. "Not a lot, but about what concerns you. We were up there with Dumbledore when you came bursting up the stairs – it's okay, they already know most of the story; we don't have to go into a lot of detail. Anyway, you pushed Draco aside so you could look at Dumbledore. I figured the two of you were communicating something. It lasted for several seconds, then Dumbledore looked straight at me and said, 'Severus, please.' I figured he was trying to let me know that he asked you to do something."

Moody was watching Severus closely. "We'd like you to tell us what that something was."

Severus had to think for a moment. The memory seemed dim and long ago, but the monster was sleeping, and the effort brought no panic. "He wanted me to throw him off the tower. He said he'd do the rest, just get him off the tower."

"You didn't use a killing curse?"

"I said the words, but they were just empty words. It was really a Levicorpus."

"That explains it!" Moody slapped his leg and laughed. "We were wondering why he went up in the air. A killing curse doesn't do that. So he wanted to go off the tower."

"Yes, he didn't want them to be able to check his body. He said if the Death Eaters thought I was with them, I could get them to leave the school before anyone else was hurt."

"And you did. You did just that. Did he tell you anything else?"

"He said it was a trap, and he gave me a memory to analyze."

The room was very still. "What was a trap?" Moody prompted.

"Where he went with Potter that evening. The Dark Lord set a trap. Potter knows – you can ask him."

"Harry isn't talking to anyone about what happened that evening. He won't say anything about what they were doing, and he refuses to give or accept any help. He's cut us off completely. Looks like we may not need him as much as we thought, though. What was in that memory?"

"I don't know. I haven't looked at it. Dumbledore can tell you."

Stillness filled the room again. In the embarrassed silence the other three glanced at each other.

"Well about that," Remus said finally. "We're not sure what happened to Dumbledore. His body was found at the foot of the tower, and Hagrid took charge of it. There was a funeral, and we thought the body was enclosed in a tomb, but no one actually saw the body at the funeral. Hagrid was crying and wailing, and refusing to talk to anyone but his brother. Now the two of them have disappeared, and we've been wondering if maybe Hagrid was acting…"

"His body was found?"

"Yes, but it didn't look like he fell from the tower. They say he looked more asleep. No one got close to the body after that because Hagrid was too… possessive."

"Hagrid's gone?"

Now Moody took up the response. "Vanished. With his brother. We don't know where."

It was all very puzzling to Severus because he was drowsy and couldn't make all the pieces of information fit together. "Dumbledore knows. He said he'd take care of it. Is Hagrid really gone?"

Moody patted his good arm. "You just go to sleep now, boyo. We're going to discuss this among ourselves, and when you wake up maybe we'll have some answers for you."

Remus helped Severus lie down again, and he was soon sleeping quietly.

The next day at noon they came to help Severus get dressed. "Meeting," was all Moody said, which made Severus think of it more as an interrogation. They considered it inappropriate for him to wear Hogwarts robes, so instead he dressed in the Victorian style that suited him well, his increased thinness from being ill accentuated by the cut of frock coat and trousers. The one problem was getting the sleeves of shirt and coat over the bandages on his left arm, but a little magic took care of that. In addition, he wore a sling that held the arm close to his body.

After he was dressed, they let him rest awhile in a chair. Then, around one o'clock, Remus came to tell Severus it was time to attend the meeting. "Don't worry. Most of them are people you know."

Severus did indeed know Remus, Moody, Arthur and Molly Weasley, Shacklebolt, Doge, Yaxley, and Tonks. He was introduced to Diggle, Podmore, and Jones, and to Vance, his eyes widening as she nodded to him rather coldly from across the room. None of them seemed particularly friendly. Twelve. As he sat in one of the armchairs, Severus felt even more that this would be some kind of interrogation.

"How come he's wearing that thing?" snapped Doge, with the preemptiveness permitted to old age. "What's wrong with his arm?"

"That," answered Moody, "is not a bad place to begin. Professor Snape's arm is bandaged and in a sling because we removed the dark mark."

"Why?"

"It was being used to punish and eventually kill him. When we got to him a few minutes after it started, his body temperature was near one hundred five degrees Fahrenheit, and his skin was covered with boils and blisters. He himself had already attempted to cut the mark away, and he'd lost a lot of blood. We finished what he started. As soon as the mark was gone, the symptoms became treatable. Would you like to see it?"

Remus and Tonks rose together and came to stand by Severus. "He hasn't seen it yet." Remus said. "This is going to be a shock," while Tonks crouched by the chair arm and murmured, "You don't have to look."

Severus turned his head away as they unwrapped the bandages, but Molly Weasley's cry and Jones's gasp drew his eyes like a magnet, and though he averted his gaze a second later, he was left with the image of a skeletal arm, stripped of much of its flesh and crusted over with a huge bubbly scab. Moody quickly replaced the bandages, and Tonks helped Severus to a drink of water.

After a few minutes, Diggle asked, "Why did You-Know-Who want to kill you."

Moody nodded to Severus, and after a moment he replied, "The Dark Lord had given a task to Draco Malfoy. It was intended that Draco would die during the completion of this task, which would be a punishment for transgressions committed by his father. I defied the Dark Lord's will by accomplishing the task myself and thwarting his punishment."

"What was the task?"

"Killing Professor Dumbledore."

"Then you admit to killing Dumbledore?"

"I don't know. I admit to pretending to kill Dumbledore and to throwing him off the Astronomy Tower, but I'm not sure if that killed him."

Doge snorted in disgust. "I'd be willing to bet if we threw you off a three-hundred-foot tower it would kill you."

"Calm down, Elphias," said Moody soothingly. "That isn't really the point. The point is, why did he do it if he knew it would turn everyone against him. I mean, if it would gain him favor with Voldemort, I could see it. But it made Voldemort want to kill him, so why do it?"

The logic made some sense. "Did you know You-Know-Who would be angry?" Doge asked.

"Yes. He'd told me so some weeks earlier."

"Then why did you do it."

"I was following orders."

"Whose orders?"

Severus sighed. "Dumbledore's," he answered.

Questions sprang at Snape from different points of the room, at which Tonks rose up in anger. "This is only the first time he's been out of bed since we brought him here! Back off!" Amazingly, they did.

"We are in a position to answer these questions," Moody said. "We have here two witnesses. One of these is Nigel Yaxley, who's been working for me inside Voldemort's organization – sorry about that Nigel; I'll have to remember to be careful – and who was on top of the tower that night. The other, if he'll agree, is Professor Snape." At that point, Moody walked over to a small side table and took an object out of a box. It was a pensieve.

Yaxley spoke first. "Snape and I started working together in the… organization because we were united against Bellatrix Lestrange. When I told Alastor about it, he said I should support Snape because there were reasons. He didn't tell me what they were. A couple of months ago, Snape started planning something strange. He wanted a safe house that no one else in the organization knew about, shielded against everyone except us and Draco Malfoy, and he stocked it with some strange equipment. Now I realize it was knives and things to cut or burn out the dark mark, but at the time it was a mystery. Moody said go along.

"Then Draco fixed that cabinet thing, and came through to Knockturn Alley looking for backup. They contacted our headquarters. Snape wasn't there, so I went along to cover his back. It got nasty when we showed up at Hogwarts because there was fighting. Gibbon – he's dead now – put a dark mark over the Astronomy Tower, and Draco cut up there to meet Dumbledore. After a bit, Greyback and the Carrows joined him. I followed and blocked the stairs so only Snape could follow us. Didn't want to be too outnumbered.

"Dumbledore was there, and he was sick. I figured right away he knew who I was because he tried not to look at me. Greyback and the Carrows started arguing about killing him, so I told them to wait and let Draco do it. I was hoping Snape would get there, and he did.

"Then the weird thing happened. Snape showed up and right away he got into eye contact with Dumbledore. It lasted just a few seconds, but then all of a sudden Dumbledore's looking right at me, and he's saying out loud, 'Severus… please.' I didn't know why he'd tell me that except to warn me that he'd told Snape to do something. Which is what happened. Snape says the killing curse, but instead of just killing Dumbledore, it lifts him up and drops him over the wall.

"Then Snape's telling us all to get off the tower and out of the castle. Greyback didn't want to leave because he was looking forward to getting at all those children, but Snape made him go. I was following them when I got hit by a Body Bind spell from behind. It's the first time I realized the Potter kid was on the tower, too. Lucky for me Tonks found me first, or I'd 've been in Azkaban by now."

When Yaxley finished there was silence. Moody looked around at Severus, who was feeling suddenly disoriented and looked it, then started barking orders. "I'm calling a recess! Lupin, Tonks, get him back into bed! The rest of you can talk about this among yourselves, but he's going to rest for at least an hour. Back off, Doge. I'm not losing my prize witness because you don't want to wait a little bit!"

Remus and Tonks got Severus back into the other room and lying down. The door closed, and for a blessed hour and a half there was quiet and repose. Severus began to feel stronger again, at which point Moody reconvened the meeting.

"Do you consent," Moody asked formally, "to having your memories exhibited to this tribunal as evidence that may be used against you?"

"I do."

Severus forced himself to think of Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower, and a wand was placed next to his temple to extract the memory, which was placed in the pensieve. In externals, it matched Yaxley's testimony exactly. Then there was the matter of the mental communication, which manifested itself in a gravely voice-over that was difficult to follow.

_Do not speak. Listen. It was a trap. Take this memory. Analyze it later. Now get them out of the school. They will follow if they think you are with them. Appear to kill me. Throw me from the tower so they cannot examine my body. I shall do the rest._

_No! That will kill you!_

_You swore. Obey me. Fenrir intends to attack the students. I want no more deaths. Throw me from the tower and get them out now! Protect Draco._

_No…_

_Do not worry. I shall do the rest._

At that point, Snape backed away, pointed his wand, and said, _"Avada Kedavra._" The pensieve memory also clearly preserved the unspoken but now vaguely audible spell Levicorpus.

When it was over, the room was silent.

"What's that thing?" Molly Weasley asked suddenly, pointing at Remus.

Arrested in mid action, Remus deliberately finished what he'd been doing, straightened up and showed her the hypodermic needle. "It's a medicine we got from Madam Pomfrey – to keep him calm."

Tonks chimed in. "He gets a little 'excited' when the tower comes up."

"And he should," said Doge emphatically. "He has a lot to answer for."

"The rest of you need to remember something," said Moody. "We've all been living with this for four weeks. Professor Snape's been in a coma part of the time and delirious the rest of the time for almost all of last month. This is still new for him. We talked about it with him for the first time on Saturday, and he had to be sedated. Yesterday we discussed it again with the tranquilizer, and it went rather well. All things considered, I'm very pleased with the progress we're making. Arthur, put that down."

Weasley was intently examining the needle, but set it back on the table as requested. "I'm interested in the other memory," he said calmly.

"What are you talking about?" piped up Diggle.

"The memory Albus gave him. Isn't that what he said? 'Take this memory. Analyze it later.' I'd like to know what was so important that it had to be passed on at a moment like that."

"Good for you, Arthur," Moody said. "We have to remember this isn't a trial. We're here for information. Professor Snape mentioned a memory yesterday. Said Dumbledore walked into a trap that night, before he returned to Hogwarts. Harry won't tell us anything, but here's a brand new source of information. I say we use it."

There was general agreement, so Moody pulled a chair in front of Severus and sat facing him. The tranquilizer had taken full effect by now, and Severus was quite relaxed and finding it hard to concentrate. "What day is it?" he asked, curious about the whole talk of days and months.

"Tuesday, July first. Now, we want you to tell us about that memory Albus gave you."

"Don't know," Severus replied with a lazy wave of his hand.

"Why not?"

"Haven't looked at it. I'm not sure where it is." He felt like he was a bit tipsy.

"Would you let me look for it?"

Severus thought about this for a moment. "Walk around in my brain?"

"Something like that. It isn't your memory anyway. You might be better off if we got it out of there."

Severus thought some more, but the logic seemed sound. "Okay," he said cheerfully. "Don't mess around in there too much."

"I promise."

The process was easy. With most of his inhibitions suppressed by the drug, Severus allowed Moody to make eye contact, then talk up the memory of the tower and the vision Dumbledore had planted in his mind. Then Moody announced, "Got it," and Remus touched Severus's temple with his wand and extracted the silver tendril of thought.

"I'm going to have to see Pomfrey about getting a lot more of that stuff," said Moody when they were through.

The group gathered around the pensieve and watched, first in fascination as the tiny boat sailed to the island in the middle of a lake of Inferi, then in horror as Dumbledore drank the glowing green potion in the basin and cried out in pain and fear. Fire drove away attacking Inferi, and a locket at the bottom of the basin was retrieved. When the memory had wound its way to the end, the room was wrapped in silence once more. Everyone was staring at the pensieve.

Everyone but Moody. Moody was watching Severus and Yaxley, for as Dumbledore cried out and pleaded, "Make it stop, I know I did wrong," both had sat up and leaned forward with identical looks of horrified recognition.

"Remus," Moody ordered, "take Professor Snape into the other room and make him comfortable. We're going to come in and speak to him in a few minutes, but I want to talk to Yaxley first. It would be better if neither influences what the other has to say before we have a chance to listen to both."

So Severus was led back into the bedroom to lie down while Moody began to unravel the mystery of why the two Death Eaters in the room were the only ones to grasp the full import of the images they'd just seen.

About half an hour later, Moody came into the bedroom with Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley. Remus was already there, as was Tonks. Severus had lain down and was drifting on the edge of sleep, but they made him get up and sit in the chair and themselves brought other chairs from the front room. Weasley also brought a cup of coffee for Severus.

"Just a few questions, Professor," Moody started, then asked, "May I call you Severus?"

"I don't have to call you Alastor, do I?" Severus's eyelids were heavy, and he wanted to lie down again.

"No, you don't." Moody glanced toward Remus. "How much of that medicine did you give him? He seems a lot foggier than yesterday."

"I did increase it. I was afraid with all the talk about the tower…"

"We'd better remember not to tamper with the dose. Severus… Professor… Do you remember what we were talking about in the other room?"

"The Astronomy Tower. And things in the pensieve."

"Good. And then we watched Professor Dumbledore drink that green liquid, and then he started talking."

"He didn't want to… He asked them to stop…" Suddenly Severus's eyes opened wide, and he looked around him in fear, his system fighting the tranquilizer in the face of remembered peril.

"What was it? What did you see?" Moody pressed him.

"Not see. I didn't see anything. Heard. I heard it before."

"What did you hear?"

"What he was saying. I heard it before. We all heard it. We all had to watch."

"Who made you watch?"

"The Dark Lord."

"What did you watch?" Moody and the others were leaning forward, hoping to hear from Severus what they'd already heard from Yaxley. Only Remus and Tonks were listening for the first time.

"Regulus. He was executed that day. Punished and executed, and we were all called in to watch. He was talking. That was Regulus."

"It was Dumbledore. We watched it in the pensieve."

Severus began to shake his head, quickly and emphatically. "No. No. It was Regulus. I heard it before – I remember. It was his fault, he did wrong – he didn't want the Dark Lord to hurt his friends or family…"

"It's all right, Severus. It was a long time ago, and it's over. No more questions." Moody leaned back and looked at the others as Remus and Tonks helped Severus back onto the bed. "That's it. The same reaction, the same memory from both of them. This has something to do with Regulus Black."

"But what?" Shacklebolt asked. "Black's been dead for over sixteen years."

"Dumbledore thought Snape might know. He told him to analyze it. We need him to get his strength back as fast as possible. Should we risk bringing Pomfrey in on this?"

Remus looked over at Moody. "You may find she knows a lot more than you think she does."

The voices were fading now as Severus drifted off into sleep. The last thing he heard was Moody saying, "Nobody mention any of this to anyone. Not friends, not family. Until we learn more about what's going on, this is top secret."

Snape woke up again around midnight, alert and clear-headed. The room was familiar, and he knew he'd been sick for some time. He looked to his right, where neither Lupin nor Tonks was now sitting, but Madam Pomfrey.

"Good to see you, Professor," she said briskly. "How are you feeling?"

"Weak, but better. Where are we now? Where have you been?"

"Hogwarts. There's been a bit of an uproar, a lot of which is apparently your fault. Alastor Moody has been keeping you – I believe the phrase is 'on ice.' Given the condition you were in when he found you, I suppose he's done a reasonably competent job, but I wish I'd been called in earlier."

"I need to get out of here."

"No, you don't. Not only is this right now probably the safest place for you, you'll find that the shielding won't let you out. I don't completely understand it, but Moody said you would. Something to do with DNA."

"So this is a jail," Snape said sarcastically.

Pomfrey was not intimidated. "I suppose it is. And you can consider yourself a prisoner."

Snape started to get up anyway, but Pomfrey was insistent. "You lie in that bed until I tell you you can get up, or I'll call Moody and Lupin in and have them strap you down." After that, Snape was quieter, though by no means happy.

"Now," continued Pomfrey, "since we are both awake, I'd like to look at that arm again." She started to unwrap the bandages with her wand, but paused as she neared the end. "Have you seen this before? It isn't pretty."

"I had a glimpse of it."

"Brace yourself. I had enough trouble getting that sedative out of your system. I don't want to have to put more back in."

Snape braced himself, but still had to look away at the sight of the disfigured arm with its massive scab. Pomfrey didn't say anything as she examined the remains of flesh and skin, massaged a salve into the scarring, and redressed the wound. Then she spoke.

"It was a flesh-intrusive brand, which was lucky. If it had extended into the bone, you'd have lost the arm. Now let's check the neural response. Can you move your fingers?"

Movement was small, but there. Pomfrey began a meticulous examination as she used a small probe to test each area of skin. "Do you feel that? How about there? Don't look – which finger am I touching? Which part of the finger?"

In the end the prognosis was not bad. "There's some neural damage, but less than I feared. You'll probably get most of the use of the arm back, though never its full strength. It might have been worse. Are you certain all connection with You-Know-Who is broken?"

"Gone completely, as near as I can tell."

"Good. I'm going to get you some food. You stay in bed. I see the slightest sign that you've tried to get up, and I will have you strapped down. You'll be getting up, but only when there's someone with you, at least for a couple of days. You're not as strong as you think you are, and I don't want you falling. Now stay."

There was no defying Pomfrey, so Snape did as he was told. She returned in a few minutes with a little chicken soup, bread, and tea. Snape ate with considerable appetite, which seemed to please Pomfrey. "Any more?" he asked when the bowl was empty.

"Not yet. Too much at once isn't good for you. At least Moody and Lupin got that right. In about an hour, if you're feeling like it, you can have some more. Now, tell me what's been happening. I understand there was more going on at the top of the Astronomy Tower than they told us."

At first Snape was reluctant to speak of it, but it was true that Madam Pomfrey probably knew more about him than any other living person except Hagrid and Dumbledore, having cared for him under stressful circumstances on more than one occasion. Quickly, without too much detail, he told her of Dumbledore's departure, Flitwick's warning, Dumbledore's orders on the tower, and his own flight and near death in Oxford.

"Then I woke up here."

"Have they treated you well?"

"Yes. Maybe better than I would have expected, considering. What was that medicine you sent them? It made me feel disconnected from my own body."

"You should have recognized it. You had it once before, that time you decided to walk off the Astronomy Tower yourself. I would have been more careful about the dose, but it was needed. You were suffering flashbacks and other signs of severe trauma. It's something to watch out for in the future. That kind of stress can recur, sometimes years afterwards."

Summer dawn was lighting the window, and Moody poked his head into the room. "Awake, I see. How is the patient doing, doctor?"

"The patient," Snape said acidly, "is perfectly capable of answering for himself."

"So? Answer."

"I'm fine. Much better than I was yesterday under your care."

"I save your life and that's the thanks I get."

The memory of those last minutes in Oxford flashed through Snape's mind, and he gasped and pressed his eyes shut. Then he realized he was holding his breath. He opened his eyes and looked up at Moody. "I'm sorry. Thank you."

"That's okay, boyo. How much do you remember of yesterday?"

"Most of it, I think. It had something to do with Regulus Black."

"Ah, good. Because I'd like to get started on that as quickly as possible. Maybe this morning?" and Moody looked hopefully at Madam Pomfrey.

"By the way," Snape said. "I understand I'm a prisoner here."

"Well, about that. We think it would be best if you didn't go wandering about."

xxxxxxxxxx

_Wednesday, July 2, 1997 (the day before the new moon)_

Instead of soup in bed, Snape got breakfast in the front room – a three-minute egg over toast and some tea. "No kipper?" he complained.

"I should feed you a kipper and watch, gloating, as you try to deal with your stomach," responded Pomfrey. "Eat your egg and be grateful!"

Breakfast over, Snape was feeling antsy, a problem Pomfrey solved by having Lupin walk up and down the room with him a few times. There was no better way to make Snape realize how weak he really was, and he was soon sitting again. Then Pomfrey relented and allowed him to have coffee.

Shacklebolt arrived around eight o'clock. He'd managed to finagle a field assignment that day, and could get cover from some of the others so that he could spend the better part of the day with Moody's group. After Shacklebolt's arrival, they brought out the pensieve.

The memory was hard to watch for all seven of them, though more so for Snape, who was still at the beginning stages of coping with Dumbledore's death, not to mention the guilt that went with it. He dealt with it by locking down large parts of his mind, a technique Moody recognized, but which left Tonks especially a bit irritated with him.

"You could show some feeling!" she yelled at him after watching Potter feed the green liquid to Dumbledore for the third time.

"What would be the point?" he answered, sending her into the other room in a huff that lasted twenty minutes and causing the other five to show signs of an incipient hostility. Yaxley and Snape continued to agree, however, that the scene they were witnessing was word for word from the punishment and execution of Regulus Black.

"He's drinking a memory," Snape stated at last. "That specific memory was brewed into that potion for the express purpose of making whoever drank it relive Regulus's last moments. Gad, I'd love to be able to analyze it!"

"Why Regulus Black?" Shacklebolt asked. "Why that memory and not some other?"

"Regulus was executed publicly for defying the Dark Lord. It wasn't just public, it was mandatory. I don't think there's ever a time, before or since, when I saw the Dark Lord so angry. Regulus didn't just try to run away. Whatever he did, it was big."

Yaxley concurred. "We never found out, though. It went through the rumor mill for months, but no one ever found out."

"Let's try it from the other direction," suggested Moody. "What's the thing in the basin that the liquid was covering."

"My guess is that it's a horcrux," Snape replied quite matter-of-factly, only to register a moment later that the others were all looking at him, Moody and Shacklebolt in surprise, the others in questioning ignorance. "Well, Dumbledore was looking for them. He had me researching artifacts that could be made into horcruxes."

"Horcruxes?" said Moody. "Plural?"

"That was my understanding at the end, that Dumbledore suspected the Dark Lord of making more than one as a kind of safeguard. Two of them were already destroyed."

"So this could have been the third one."

"He wanted artifacts. More than one. So I think he suspected there were more than three total."

"What's a horcrux?" Tonks and Yaxley said together, and they paused while Moody explained.

"How many did he think there were?" Shacklebolt asked.

"I have no idea." Snape answered. "However, he was meeting with Potter sporadically during the school year, and Potter went with him to this lake and basin, so I would hazard a guess that Potter knows."

"All right," said Shacklebolt, "we have a potential horcrux in a basin on an island surrounded by a lake full of Inferi, and it's guarded additionally by a liquid that contains the memory of Regulus Black's execution. Now we have to find a connection."

"If there is one," said Lupin.

"Oh, there is one," Yaxley said. "With the Dark Lord, there was always a connection."

They tossed ideas around for a while, few of which made great sense, but eventually Snape was quiet, staring morosely at the pensieve.

"Penny for your thoughts?" said Moody. "And if you don't have any, we can break for lunch."

"I'm just trying to figure out why?"

"Why what?"

"Why," said Snape, "go to all the trouble to defend a horcrux you expect to be stolen."

That got everyone's attention. "Go ahead," Moody told Snape, "we're listening."

"Look at the setup. The number of wizards the Dark Lord could expect to reach the basin on the island, even accompanied by a teenage apprentice, can be counted on the fingers of one finger. I can't imagine anyone but Dumbledore getting that far. I couldn't do it.

"So Dumbledore gets that far, then drinks the potion. But it doesn't kill him. It is so far from killing him that some time later he's still perfectly lucid and in control on top of the Astronomy Tower. Granted, the Dark Lord might not suspect that he'd have someone with him… but he might have brought a bezoar or some other universal antidote that would at least have given him time to take the horcrux and get away.

"The Dark Lord told me he'd prepared traps for Dumbledore, and I passed that information on. But why set a trap that allows the victim to get such a precious item? Preserving the horcrux should come first. Killing Dumbledore second. Letting Dumbledore know he'd been fooled third. Come to think of it, using Regulus's execution could be proof the Dark Lord intended Dumbledore to get away. Otherwise, how would he ever know what the memory was?"

Moody was nodding. He thought for a few moments. "What if it wasn't the real horcrux? What if it was a fake?"

Yaxley pondered this. "You mean the Dark Lord set this up with a fake in the middle? It doesn't sound like him. Something this detailed and elaborate must originally have held something truly important. He doesn't tend to mix the false with the meaningful."

"What if it originally held the real horcrux, then Volde-, sorry Yaxley, You-Know-Who switched it to trap Dumbledore?"

"Or what," said Snape musingly, "if that was Regulus's crime? Stealing the original horcrux? Then the Dark Lord wouldn't care if Dumbledore got the thing in the basin or not. And the potion would be a warning of what happens to people who go after the Dark Lord's horcruxes."

"Then where's the real horcrux?" It was a rhetorical question. Moody was watching Snape closely.

"He might have taken it from Regulus and put it somewhere else…" Snape closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "The problem with that is that when Regulus died, the Dark Lord was winning. Why not put the horcrux back into its original safeguarding? The diary and the ring were still there…" Snape didn't notice that the others were intrigued by what he said. "This one wasn't unique… On the other hand, if he wanted to move the horcrux to a new location, why maintain the old one? Dumbledore wasn't looking for horcruxes sixteen years ago…"

There was in the room a sense of portent, as if a spirit of destiny hovered over them. No member of the Order of the Phoenix could have the insight into Voldemort's mind that a Death Eater could, and the others waited as if for a revelation.

"But if he didn't get the horcrux back from Regulus, he might have anticipated finding it in a short time, in which case why not preserve the protections – to be able to use them as soon as that happened? He didn't know he was going to be destroyed by a baby! When that happened, this all froze, and was available to set a trap for Dumbledore after the Dark Lord returned…"

Snape turned to Moody. "Where would Regulus Black hide a stolen horcrux? It may still be there."

"I don't want to sound obvious," said Shacklebolt, "but could he have hidden it in his parents' house?"

Yaxley laughed. "I'd think the Dark Lord would search there first."

"Maybe," said Moody, "maybe not. You may not know, but they had a house-elf. If the house-elf was guarding the horcrux, no wizard could have found it."

Snape laughed, a short sharp laugh. "Then the house-elf may still be guarding the horcrux."

"No," Lupin said. "The house-elf is working in the kitchens at Hogwarts. Harry inherited the house and sent him there nearly a year ago."

The seven of them stared at each other around the table. Finally Moody spoke. "The one still alive who knows the house most intimately is Molly Weasley. Sirius gave her the right to clean the place from top to bottom two years ago. If the horcrux was there, Molly saw it. We need to talk to her."

"What are we asking about?" Shacklebolt inquired.

"A necklace. Something like a locket on a chain. That's what Dumbledore was expecting to find because that's what Dumbledore took from the basin and put into his robes."

Shacklebolt went to fetch Molly Weasley. A few minutes after they returned, Arthur apparated in from the Ministry. Both were quickly filled in, but that happened over lunch since Madam Pomfrey insisted that Snape had to eat something.

"So," concluded Moody. "Did you find anything like a locket on a chain?"

"Of course," said Molly. "We took a lot of jewelry out of the cabinets, and I know at least one item was a heavy gold locket. There may have been others, but one for sure."

"Why do you remember that one?"

"It was heavy, clearly valuable, and we tried forever to open it, but it wouldn't open. It had an ornate decoration on the front, like a serpentine S."

"Do you think it's still there?"

"Who would take it? Sirius said his father'd locked the place up with the tightest security spells he could find. Made the place unplottable. With that, and with Kreacher, and with the additional spells Dumbledore put on it, that house is safer than Gringotts."

The team that went to twelve Grimmauld Place could not find the locket described by Molly Weasley. They couldn't find any locket. They couldn't find any jewelry at all.

Eight disappointed members of the Order plus spies and medical personnel sat dejectedly around the table in Snape's prison that evening. Shacklebolt wasn't there since he'd returned to the Ministry at the end of the official workday.

"I do have to go back to Hogwarts." Pomfrey informed them. "It's been thrilling being with you all for this exciting day, but I may be needed there as well. You take care of my patient, or I'll be back with brimstone to afflict you all with boils." The rest bid her farewell, and she left the safe house to apparate back to the school.

Molly Weasley was disconsolate. "I can't understand why that locket isn't there. There were things we threw out, of course, but nothing that seemed to be of real value. Sirius didn't care about it, but we wanted to keep what was good. It was all there, and it should still be there. The place was unplottable and unknowable. It wasn't like a thief could get in and steal everything."

"No!" Snape cried, and they all turned to stare at him. "I've known it for months, but I never knew it was important. Bella said all those things belonged to her, but of course he took them from number twelve. What an idiot I am that I didn't realize it before!"

"What are you talking about, Severus?" Molly snapped.

"Mundungus Fletcher. He's been selling things he pinched from the Black house, probably after Kreacher left. He's got the locket! Either that or he's already sold it!"

"Tell us what you know," Moody said quietly.

"Last year one of our people came to headquarters with…" Snape had gotten to his feet to pace as he talked, but stopped at the expression on their faces. Yaxley was just looking at the floor. "What?"

"You've been doing this for two days now," said Arthur Weasley. "First it was 'Dark Lord,' and now it's 'our people.' Are you sure whose side you're on?"

Snape opened his mouth to reply, closed it again, and turned to the dingy window to look out at the limited view of the wall of the building next door. Then he went back to the table and eased himself into his chair with his good arm. "Habit," was all he said.

"Enough," Moody snapped. "Just keep talking."

Snape stared at the table top as he talked, a note of bitterness now in his voice. "One of them… came to their headquarters… with a little box he said he bought from a peddler. Bella apparently had a fit. What was on the box, Yaxley?"

"Greyhound. She said it was hers, that the picture showed the box belonged to the Black family."

"I told Dumbledore about that, and he said he'd take care of it. That was in… October? Then in March all of a sudden the… he… started showing interest in number twelve. He wanted to know if I could get inside to look for things. I told him I could only go there if someone else was there to let me in. He wanted to know who among the Order might be a thief. That was when he hinted that he was setting traps for Dumbledore. I told Dumbledore, and that weekend Fletcher was arrested and sent to Azkaban. I got the impression Dumbledore arranged it for Fletcher's own good."

"Okay," said Moody. "Harry sent Kreacher to Hogwarts last July. From then through part of October Mundungus had the opportunity to take objects out of the house. Up until mid March he could have been selling them. Gad, half wizarding Britain could be in possession of that locket by now."

"And," Lupin spoke for the first time, "it sounds like You-Know-Who's been looking for it since March. Who knows? He may have found it."

Moody looked over at Snape. "You said two 'd already been destroyed. What were they?"

"There was a diary the… You-Know-Who had when he was a student. You remember, Arthur – Molly, the one Lucius Malfoy slipped to your daughter at the beginning of her first year and that Potter destroyed. Poor Lucius… he had no idea the trouble he was getting into. The second was a ring. That one was booby-trapped with dark fire, but it was a real horcrux."

"Is that why Dumbledore's hand was burned like that?"

Snape nodded.

"And we don't know how many Dumbledore thought there were?"

"No. Potter might know."

"Harry refuses to talk to anyone about Dumbledore or his plans."

"I'll bet that's not true." Snape looked over at the Weasleys. "I'll bet he talks to your son and daughter. And to Granger. They may have exactly the information you need."

Arthur was on his feet before Snape finished, Molly right behind him. "You leave my children out of this! They're not involved!"

Snape was on his feet, too. "If they're friends of Potter's, they're already involved. Do you think the Dark Lord doesn't know who Potter's friends are? He doesn't even have to ask the children of his Death Eaters. He was teaching them from the back of Quirrell's head for a year! And Peter Pettigrew was living in your son's pocket for three! Had you heard – the Dark Lord's gotten very good at kidnapping people?"

In the silence that followed, Snape stared into Arthur and Molly's ashen faces. He was suddenly very tired – his left arm throbbed and he felt dizzy. He slowly sat down again and laid his head on the table, cushioned on his good arm, while Tonks crossed the room to comfort Molly, and Arthur turned to Moody in anguish.

"What are we going to do?" Arthur said.

"Remus and I can come spend some time with you before the wedding," said Tonks. "We'll keep an eye on Ginny and Ron. Is Hermione coming to stay with you then?"

"She'll come for the wedding, then stay for a while afterwards," said Molly.

"We may want to have someone watching her parents' house, too, then. At least until she goes to the Burrow." Moody was thinking out loud. "The wedding will be a target, I'd imagine. We should plan to have extra security there, and continue it through the summer for the children's protection." He looked over at Snape, who had sat up again and was watching them, and laughed. "I'm afraid you're not going to be able to make it to the wedding, boyo. You're staying here."

There was an awkward silence, and Molly blushed crimson

"Sorry," said Moody. "It was a bad joke. Of course since last month there've been a few alterations in the guest list…"

"Not as many as you think, it would seem," said Snape.

"But you're on Hogwarts's staff and a member of…"

"Stick your foot any further into your mouth and you'll need a podiatrist instead of a dentist." Snape looked down at the fingernails of his right hand. "By the way, Mrs. Weasley, just in case it comes up in casual conversation again…"

"Bill and that Beauxbatons champion, Fleur Delacour."

"Thank you. " Snape turned his attention back to Moody. "Now that the security aspects have been arranged to the satisfaction of everyone who matters, what about Fletcher?"

"I'll talk to Kingsley," said Tonks quickly. "Maybe we could arrange for some of us aurors to go up to Azkaban to question him. He should remember if he sold the locket, and to whom."

"Good," Moody said, glad to be on another topic. "I think we've covered what we need for today. I'll notify the others and arrange for further meetings as we make progress."

The Weasleys seemed relieved to be able to go, and Lupin and Tonks promised to follow later in the evening.

"Are you leaving as well," Snape asked Moody after Arthur and Molly had gone.

"No, I'll stay the night. Wouldn't want you to be lonely."

Snape glanced over at Yaxley, who looked embarrassed. "You mean he can leave, too? I thought he was officially a prisoner."

"That's the story, but not the reality. I've got some jobs for him to do."

"So the only one who can't leave is me. That must have been quite a feat, calibrating the shields for a dozen people."

It was Moody's turn to look embarrassed. "We… didn't calibrate them for a dozen. Just for one."

"You mean I'm the only one the shields will block?"

"That's about it."

"You're telling me that the Dark Lord could walk in here after me, and I couldn't get out?"

"You know that's not going to happen."

"But it could! This is a cage! You've got me locked in a cage! What if there's a fire?"

"There isn't going to be a fire."

"Where's my wand?"

"I can't let you have a wand. You've got to stay here until…"

"I die of old age? Or I just go quietly crazy? Moody, you rat, you get me out of here!"

"Can't do that, boyo. The reason only half of wizarding Britain wants you dead is the other half thinks you already are. This is for your own protection."

"I warn you, if you don't let me out… I'll find a way myself."

"You go ahead and try, boyo. I think we've got even you stumped."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Come on, Snape. Settle down and let's have some supper."

"Get stuffed! I'd rather starve than eat with you!" And Snape stomped into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him, and threw himself onto the bed, to lie staring at the ceiling as the summer dusk lengthened in the room.

After a while there was a gentle tap at the door. Snape didn't answer. A moment later the door opened and Lupin came in.

"Can you install a lock on that thing?" Snape asked.

"You could be nicer to people. He did save your life."

"I'm beginning to think that wasn't a favor. Maybe I'd rather he hadn't."

"There are lots worse things than being here."

"I'm also beginning to think that being dead isn't one of them."

"Tell me what I can get you."

"Besides freedom?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I." Lupin put his hand on the doorknob again. "No, wait," Snape said. "I'm sorry. It's just… Do you remember how it felt to be shut in the Shrieking Shack?"

"Vividly."

"But you knew that in three days you could come out again."

"I also knew I wasn't responsible for my problem."

Snape abruptly turned on his left side so he was facing the wall, his injured arm held against his body and away from the bed by the sling. "I changed my mind. There's nothing I want more than to be alone. Go away."

"We have to accept the consequences of our choices, Severus."

"What choices?"

"You could have said no."

"You saw the pensieve memory. I was given an order."

"You still could have refused."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you. Lots of new young werewolves running around to keep you company."

"It wasn't a full moon."

"Dead children, then." Snape paused. "Why don't you lock Potter up, too?"

Lupin's voice reflected his confusion. "Why would we do that?"

"He forced Dumbledore to drink poison. The reason Dumbledore couldn't fight back was he was weakened and dying from the poison Potter forced him to drink."

"Don't be silly, Severus. Harry was following Dumbledore's orders."

Snape neither moved nor spoke. He closed his eyes and lay very still facing the wall until he heard the sound of the door open and then close again on the departing Lupin. After a while he slept.

When Snape woke it was night, but the room was bathed in the dim light of a small lamp. He turned on the bed to look around the room. Moody was sitting in the chair by the little table reading _The Daily Prophet_.

"Are you hungry?" Moody asked.

"Not for your food." Snape turned away again.

"Mine's no different from anyone else's. Besides, it's the only food around."

"You should've left me to die."

"No, I shouldn't have." They were silent for a moment, then Moody continued. "Would you like to hit me? Sock me right in the mouth and knock out a couple of teeth?"

"Don't be patronizing."

"Stop moping." Moody set the paper down. "The world's not going back to the way it was. Nothing you can do is going to change that. You had a split second to make a decision, and you followed the orders of a man you trusted. Now you're in a jail and everyone treats you like a criminal. It isn't fair, and nothing's going to make it fair. But you're blaming the wrong people. Dumbledore didn't create the situation any more than you did. Neither did I. Now I can't promise you a future. You may be locked in a cage and treated like a criminal for the rest of your life. But I can help you get the one who created the situation. If that's worth something to you, let me know. I'll be in the other room."

It was a full twenty minutes before the bedroom door opened. Snape leaned against the jamb, still weak and unsteady. "You're right," he said, "I am hungry."

Moody helped him to a chair and brought soup and toast, and a pot of tea. When Snape asked for more, Moody got it without a murmur. Then they began to talk.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Thursday, July 3, 1997 (the new moon)_

Lupin arrived by midmorning to find Snape and Moody reviewing Dumbledore's memory over and over in minute detail.

"Freeze it right there!" Moody was saying to Snape. "There, just to the right of the ring for the chain. Look at the slit where the two halves close together… Oh, good morning Remus, sleep well? …Just the edge – a hair's thickness… See!"

"I do not see it. I'd borrow your eye, but I'd have to cut out my own to be able to use it."

"I swear, it's the edge of a piece of paper, parchment, something inside the locket."

"So you think there's a portrait in there?" Snape studied the image, trying to see what Moody saw.

"That, or some kind of message for the finders. Maybe gloating that they went through all that trouble for nothing."

Turning to Moody, Snape asked, "Where's the locket now?"

"I don't know. Remus, do you know if Hagrid found a locket in Dumbledore's pocket?"

"I never heard of one."

Moody hit the table with a fist. "I'll bet anything Harry has it!"

"Why?" asked Snape. "He wasn't searching Dumbledore's body – he was trying to kill me. And doing an incredibly poor job at it."

"We can find out exactly what happened at the wedding. We can engage Harry in conversation…"

"What you mean we, white man? I'm not going to that wedding. Aside from the fact that I was never invited, my presence might put a damper on the festivities."

Lupin frowned. "I don't think it's a good idea to pump Harry for information at the wedding."

Snape more than concurred. "I don't think it's a good idea to talk to him at all. He's given to lying if he thinks he's in a spot."

This statement caused Lupin to bristle. "A lot of people back off if they think they're being pressured…"

"Right," said Snape. "Especially when they've just experimented with an unknown spell, nearly killed a classmate, and there's blood all over the place."

"That doesn't sound like Harry."

"Do you want to see the memory? We have a pensieve right here. The cute thing is that he didn't try to hide the near manslaughter. He tried to hide where he got the spell."

"I don't believe that."

"Do you want to see the memory? I'll show it to you right now."

"No."

"Afraid to see Precious Potter in a bad light?"

"No… It's just that you're enjoying this too much. He's just a boy."

"He'll be seventeen on the thirty-first. Legally an adult. I, frankly am all for changing the of-age rule to twenty-one since I think the collective lot of them are still wet behind the ears, but if he's an adult…"

"Break it up, you two," snapped Moody. "I swear, Severus, if you square off against every person who walks through that door…"

"Then let me out. Let me breathe."

"You wait 'til we're ready. Meanwhile, you said don't ask Harry. Who do we ask?"

"That boy can't live without talking. He talks to his friends: Weasley, Granger, sometimes Longbottom, more recently the Weasley girl, Lovegood from Ravenclaw… I'd go for Granger."

"Why?"

"She's smarter than the others, more logical. She'd be more likely to give you a balanced account."

Moody and Lupin went out shortly before noon, refusing to tell Snape where they were going, and Snape was alone in the tiny apartment for the first time. He immediately opened a window and tried to stick his hand out, but the shield repulsed him and gave him a nasty shock at the same time. This happened at every other window and at the door.

After that Snape prowled through the entire place looking for cracks and crevices, even moving aside a loose floorboard in the bedroom and trying to push his hand into the space. _This is my punishment for teaching Yaxley how to shield the laboratory. We'll see if I ever take anyone into my confidence again!_

Then he thought of the ceiling. Once again Snape went through the apartment looking for a place that was already cracked so that he could widen it enough to get a finger inside and test for a shield. The tiny bathroom provided just such a spot, and Snape dragged a chair in so he could stand on it and just barely reach the ceiling. He was so intent on his work that he didn't hear the soft sound of the front door opening.

"I'm just going to have to tie you up every time I walk out of here, aren't I," Moody said calmly, causing Snape to jump and nearly fall off the chair. "It won't work, though, Russ. We thought about that already. Or Yaxley did. You did a pretty thorough job with him."

Snape let Moody help him from the chair, as the exertion from the last couple of hours had made him dizzy again. "How did you know my parents called me Russ?"

"You told me. First time you woke up, I asked you your name. I thought you were still in La-La Land until I realized it was short for Severus. Now here I was figuring a way for you to be paroled, and you're planning a breakout."

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	2. Chapter 2 – Operation Great–Nephew

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Operation Great-Nephew**

"Paroled? You're going to let me out?"

Moody steered Snape to the table and made him sit down. "Lunch first. We talk while we eat. You got to keep your strength up."

Lunch was sandwiches and tea, but Snape ate automatically, caring more for what Moody had to say than for the food.

"As I see it, I have two main problems letting you leave here. The first is you. You can't run. You've got to stay with me. If I can't trust you, it won't happen. The second is, you can't show your face. We can't pretend you won't be recognized – you've been teaching nearly every wizard in Britain for the past sixteen years. So I figure you can be Russell Moody."

"Who's Russell Moody?"

"It'll come as a shock to everyone that I have a younger sister in Canada, and my nephew's come to Britain to visit for a bit."

"You're talking about Polyjuice Potion."

"The very same."

"How old is this mysterious nephew of yours?"

"Fifteen. Maybe sixteen."

"No. It won't work. I could never act that age. Forget it."

"I thought it was rather brilliant of me to make you a little younger than Harry and his friends so they'd feel they had to be sociable. Calling you Russ would remind you of the age you're supposed to be, and you'd respond to it naturally. Just think – you could go to the wedding."

"Joy. It won't work. First, there's no time to make Polyjuice Potion. Second, there's no way to sneak a drink of it every hour at a large gathering like that. Third, everyone would know in a very short time that I wasn't that young. Fourth, I don't think I could stand being around Potter and his friends for even an afternoon. Fifth, I'd bolt and run. I swear I'd leave you if you did something like that to me."

"I'm encouraged. If you were really planning to run, you'd agree to everything and then just skip out when you had the chance. No, we could have a great background story. You've been sick most of your life, which is why you act different and have to take medicine…

Snape shook his head. "It won't work. And there's no potion."

Moody laughed. "You think after that experience with Barty Crouch I don't keep a supply of Polyjuice Potion on hand? I've got enough for a month. You wouldn't need it for a month, though. Just a couple of hours at a wedding."

xxxxxxxxxx

"Your story is so full of holes I could drive a bus through it."

Moody glared at Snape. "All right, genius, what's wrong?" Moody 'd brought in a bottle of firewhisky, and during the course of the afternoon had brought Snape to the point of at least talking about the plan.

"The whole list? First, you're too old to have a fifteen-year-old nephew. Second, if I'm your sister's son, my name's not likely to be Moody. Third, if I'm a baby wizard, why don't you let me have a wand? Fourth…"

"Okay. Wait. You're my nephew's son, my great-nephew. That'd be harder to check anyway, and your name could still be Moody. And your mother's a muggle. That way we could use all that muggle knowledge you've got. And…"

"And your nephew is a jerk, so my mother and I don't live with him or associate with anyone in your family because you're beneath us. I'm beginning to like this story."

"I love you, too, Sonny-boy." Moody thought for a moment. "You know, we could use that. Being angry and resentful suits you perfectly. What say you're here because your parents are getting a divorce and my nephew was granted custody by a wizard court…"

"But a muggle court gave me to my mother, so your nephew kidnapped me and sent me here. So I hate you and keep trying to escape and go home where I belong."

"We don't want this too much like a soap opera. If you grew up with your mother, you may have gone to a muggle school instead of a wizard school. Thus no wand."

"Why do we keep coming back to my not having a wand?"

Moody ignored the question. "It would also make it harder for any wizard to check you out. They wouldn't know how to check muggle schools in America."

"I thought I was Canadian."

"The States are harder to check. There's fifty of them and they all have different laws."

"So where am I from?"

"Some big city."

"Can I be rich and obnoxious? I've never been rich before, and I'm good at obnoxious."

"Do you really want to remind Harry and his friends of Draco Malfoy?"

"He's pureblood obnoxious. I'd be muggle obnoxious. It's a different thing."

"What about New York?"

"Lots of our people visit New York. If I make a mistake, someone may notice. I was going to try to go to Denver."

"Can you ski?"

"You know, Moody, sometimes you don't act like a pureblood at all… Los Angeles? Beverly Hills?"

"Can you surf?"

"San Francisco? Chicago? New Orleans?"

Moody conjured an atlas of the United States and pored over the cities for a while. "San Francisco," he said at last.

"Why?"

"It's smaller. You'd have an easier time studying all the different parts of it so if people asked you questions you wouldn't get tripped up on the answers."

"I'll need books."

"There's one other problem. Lupin was in the room when you said your name was Russ. We're going to have to handle this so he thinks it's a coincidence that the boy coming in is also called Russ."

"That could be hard to do. Why not just tell him the truth? Or give me another name?"

"He might think having you spy on Harry and his friends isn't ethical. And I want your head to go up when you hear someone speak your name across a room, like happens with real people. By the way, what do you want to look like? I can get contacts to pick out a likely candidate and collect hair in a barber shop perhaps. Maybe someone really from the States. That way the accent would be natural and we wouldn't have to risk your running into your double in Britain."

"Average height, on the thin side, black hair, black eyes…"

"So everyone will say, 'That boy looks just like old Snape did when he was younger'? No."

"Just no blond hair. I don't want to look like Draco."

"You got it."

The Weasleys dropped by in the evening to bring Moody up to date with the security precautions for the wedding. Lupin was with them, but Tonks had remained at the Burrow to watch over the young people. Snape stayed in the bedroom.

"We think," Moody finished after describing their efforts with the pensieve, "that there was a piece of paper or parchment in the locket Dumbledore took from the basin. It may be a portrait or a message, and may give us further clues. Have you heard anything about it?"

Neither Arthur nor Molly had any information. They were getting ready to go when Moody brought up the new business.

"By the way, Molly, would it be all right if I brought another guest to the wedding?"

"A lady friend?" Arthur Weasley grinned. "Moody, you old dog!"

"No such luck. This is a young man. My nephew's son. He's arriving in Britain next week. On an airplane."

The other three exchanged glances. "Your nephew's son is a squib?" Molly said.

"I don't know. I've never met him. His mother's a muggle and she's been separated from my nephew for some time. They've started divorce proceedings…"

Molly Weasley was horrified. "Wizard divorces! How awful, even if she is a muggle! The poor boy!"

"That's not the worst. She went to a muggle court and got custody, so my nephew went to a wizard court. They gave him custody, but he wants the boy out of the situation. He's sending Russell here until everything's final. I just don't want the boy to be alone."

"Of course he can come to the wedding. How old is he?"

"Fifteen, I think. I'm not really sure. We don't correspond much."

"Well then, he'll fit right in with the others. I'll tell them there'll be another young man. My boys will make him welcome."

"Just tell Fred and George not to make him too welcome. The boy has enough problems."

After the Weasleys left, Moody conferred with Lupin. "We'll need a better place for our guest as well. He was trying to find a way through the shields this morning, and I don't trust him to be left alone here for a couple of days. I think in that time he'll find a way out."

"Yaxley can't stand guard?""

"He could, but the two were pretty close on the other side. I don't want to put Yaxley in that position. You have any ideas?"

"I'll think about it. It is a bit of a problem."

With Lupin gone as well, Moody called Snape out of the bedroom. "It should be okay. If he thinks we're putting you in stricter confinement, he might not make the connection."

"You worry me sometimes, you know."

"Why's that, boyo?"

"Your unwillingness to let the others know what you're doing. You're planning an action that keeps everyone in the dark and could turn out disastrously. You know who you remind me of?"

"Who?"

"Dumbledore."

Pictures arrived from America the next morning, and Snape picked a rather ordinary-looking young man with medium-length dark hair and gray eyes. It was different enough so that others wouldn't see the resemblance, but not so different that Snape would have trouble adjusting to the image in the mirror.

Books also arrived about America in general and San Francisco in particular. Constructing a character proved to be an interesting occupation, and kept Snape busy for several days. Then Moody arrived with the Polyjuice Potion and a small bag full of clippings of dark hair, ready for a trial run.

Getting out of the apartment was the first challenge. Moody started by casting a spell on Snape to prevent him from going more than one hundred feet from Moody's side. Snape then stood right next to Moody until Moody realized he was waiting to hear the spells that would lower the shields, at which point Snape was ordered into the bedroom. And though Snape kept protesting, "But I'm supposed to stay right with you," Moody was adamant.

After a side-by-side apparation to Moody's home, the two set to work. First Moody trimmed off a bit of Snape's hair to make a reserve potion in case he had to change quickly back into himself before the hour was up. Then they mixed the hair from America into a dose of Polyjuice and Snape drank it. It tasted terrible, and for some seconds made him feel horribly sick to his stomach, then it was over.

Moody was nodding in satisfaction. "The clothing is too loose, but the overall effect is good."

Snape looked at himself in the mirror, and found a short, slender young man with collar-length brown hair and gray eyes staring back at him from a slightly tanned face. His left arm looked whole again, though he could tell it was weak. "Acceptable," he commented. Then he looked at Moody through narrowed eyes. "I hope you're prepared to spend money."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Money. Muggle money. Lots of it."

"Why?"

"Lupin for one. If you don't want him to get suspicious, then we have to be letter perfect from moment one. Which means you drag him down to Heathrow to watch me get off the plane. I'll need an American passport, and a couple of nice suitcases full of good clothes. French and Italian labels would be great – rich, but not British."

"I thought you didn't care about that kind of thing!"

"Do you know how many hours I spent as a boy wishing I was rich and planning what I'd do with the money if I had it? Do you know how hard I worked just to be a little bit comfortable? Your great-nephew is wealthy and muggle-raised. You don't want to give the game away by being cheap."

"Where are we going, then?"

"I thought, maybe… Harrods."

"You blackmailing little…"

"All right! But at least Oxford Street!"

They spent a couple of days shopping, the most expensive item being a dark three-piece suit that Moody had to wait an hour for while the store tailors measured the cuffs and sleeves, and the fit of the shoulders and waist, until it was exquisitely cut and fitted to perfection. Then there were shirts, slacks, sweaters, shoes, underwear, and a few items that threw Moody into fits.

"Tennis whites! You don't play tennis!"

"Neither do any of them. But the fact that I came prepared to play strengthens the story."

The two also spent considerable time at Heathrow, checking on arrival times for planes coming from San Francisco, immigration and customs procedures, and passports. The passport and plane ticket were the only things they magicked, but they needed to examine the real things in order to do it. They sat in airport coffee shops lifting and replacing various examples until Snape was able to duplicate an almost perfect U. S. passport complete with entry and exit stamps for a variety of countries.

"Isn't this fraud?" Moody asked.

"Fine time to be worried about it. Besides, I'm not using a fake passport to illegally enter Great Britain. I'm already in Great Britain. I never left. I'm just using a fake passport to cross from one side of a barrier to the other side of a barrier. It's a much smaller offense."

The wedding was on Sunday, July 20. It was immediately after the three days of the full moon, so Lupin could be there. Moody asked Lupin to go with him to Heathrow on Wednesday the sixteenth to greet his young kinsman. The timing was perfect. Lupin would first meet 'Russell Moody' the day before he entered a werewolf cycle, and would see him again the day after the cycle. Any discrepancies would be explained by his mental state stemming from the moon's phase.

'Operation Great-Nephew' was about to begin.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Wednesday, July 16, 1997 (two days before the full moon)_

It was the first great test of faith, for now Snape could not be held on a hundred-foot leash. He and Moody apparated into Heathrow in the wee hours of the morning where, between flights, they placed an 'Out of Order' sign on a stall in the men's room of the arrival area. It was enchanted so that none of the attendants would notice it before the tale was spun out. Snape remained at Heathrow with an ample supply of Polyjuice Potion.

Moody and Lupin arrived around nine. They prowled around the airport for a while, then went to the arrival area for the flight from San Francisco. The wait was nerve-racking, and Moody kept showing Lupin the picture of his 'great-nephew' and asking for help in identifying the young man. It was with a prayer of thanksgiving that Moody finally saw the slim figure in tan trousers and a denim jacket emerge from customs with a luggage trolley and two suitcases.

"Russell!" he called, waving. "Russell Moody! Over here!"

The expression that crossed the young face was one of distaste and exasperation, then he approached. "Uncle Alastor?" he asked, and Moody seized and shook his hand with enthusiasm.

Snape was enjoying himself thoroughly. He'd independently decided he was going to be less than impressed with his uncle to give the others the opportunity to disabuse him of that opinion. From the beginning he'd tossed away the idea of being pleasant and friendly as a task so far beyond his abilities as to be virtually impossible. Instead he would try to be someone that the others would want to persuade of the error of his own opinions and the righteousness of theirs. As long as he didn't allow himself to become too impatient with stupidity, it might work.

He was introduced to Lupin, but they didn't talk as the three made their way to the exits. There Snape started to go to the short-term parking area. Moody stopped him. "This way," he said, pointing to a side passage.

"Don't you have a car?" 'Russell' asked.

"This way's faster."

Part way down the corridor, out of view of other passengers, Lupin removed the suitcases from the trolley. "Hang on," he said.

"Oh no," answered 'Russell'. "We're not bouncing around all over the place. That's the kind of cheap trick my dad would pull. What's the matter – you can't afford a car?"

"It's the fastest, easiest way to get where we're going," said Lupin.

"It's cheap and unpleasant. You just don't want me to see anything of England, whisking me from the airport to your place like this. Well, I've been to England before, and I know what you're trying to keep me from seeing."

For the first time, Lupin looked like he wanted to strike a teenager. _That's a point for us. If we were trying to ingratiate ourselves with him we wouldn't start by insulting him. He's believing the act._

"Come on, Russell," Moody pleaded. "Let's just get home as quickly as we can. You've got plenty of time to see Britain. Right now we just want to settle you in and get you unpacked."

"I'll be going home before you know it. My mom's not going to let you stick me here forever. I give it a week, and then I'm going home."

"At least try to enjoy yourself for the week."

"This dump? Give me a break. You don't even have a car. Can you call a taxi?"

"You shut your mouth," snapped Lupin. "We're apparating, and you can just live with it. Spoiled little American brat." The last was muttered under his breath. Lupin was usually out of sorts just before the metamorphosis.

"I didn't ask to come here you know. I think my dad's broken some kind of international law, and if I go to the police they'll send me home and put him in prison. How about that?"

The two 'older' wizards grabbed the irritating youngster and his luggage, and apparated to Moody's home. There Lupin left them, and though he didn't exactly say that he was happy to be rid of 'Russell', he certainly gave that impression.

"What the hell were you doing?" Moody yelled after Lupin left.

"Making him believe our story," Snape replied, with a bit of a smirk on his face.

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_Sunday, July 20, 1997 (two days after the full moon)_

"You know," Snape said as he looked at the gray-eyed teenager in the mirror and straightened his tie, "this isn't going to work."

"Why not?"

Moody was in maroon dress robes, and the misshapen bulk of the wizard contrasted oddly with the slim boy in the navy blue suit.

"There's no way they'll get to know me well enough today to talk to me about lockets and horcruxes."

"I know that. I've been thinking for the last couple of days that this is more like a foot in the door."

"You mean I'll have to play this role more often?"

"After buying all that stuff, we may as well use it."

"I don't know if I can handle it."

"We'll know after today. Then we'll decide if you just go back to your parents in America."

"If we do continue, I'm going to have to do something about the Polyjuice Potion. That stuff is foul."

"How could you change it?"

"The Dark Lord had me working on making it last longer. I was thinking I could turn it into pills. That would at least be easier than drinking it."

"Let's get through today first."

They apparated side by side to the Burrow, where the wedding guests were already congregating. Ministry officials, Hogwarts teachers, member of the Order of the Phoenix (not openly, of course), family, friends, and contacts of the Weasleys were mingling over punch and hors d'oeuvres under the canopies that had been set up in the yard. Molly was inside, helping with last-minute adjustments to Fleur's gown, but Arthur was outside with the guests, and he came over to greet Moody.

"This, Arthur, is my nephew, Russell Moody. He's visiting for a while from America."

"Welcome. We're happy you could come to our little celebration." Weasley stuck out his hand, muggle fashion, and 'Russell' took it.

"Thank you, sir," he said politely.

Weasley was examining the suit. "I may ask you to show me how to fix one of those if we have time later," he said, pointing to the necktie. "I've never watched someone actually do it." Then he turned in the direction of the house. "Ginny! Ron! Company for you!"

"Maybe I should just stay with you, Uncle."

"Nonsense," said Weasley. "Have fun with people your own age. Don't be shy! This is my daughter Ginny, and my youngest son, Ron. This is Mr. Moody's nephew Russell. Now go off and make him feel at home."

Moody laid a hand on 'Russell's' shoulder. "You need me, you just call."

The two men moved away to join other guests, leaving the three young people standing awkwardly by the gate.

"Are you really from America?" Ginny asked.

"California."

"Bet it's a lot different from here."

"It is."

"You want to come inside?"

"Okay." They walked slowly up the walk, and then Snape entered the Weasley house for the first time in his life.

It was a fascinating place. Snape realized quite suddenly that he didn't know much about the way ordinary wizards lived. His own home was much more a muggle residence, since his father hadn't been comfortable with the world of magic. He'd also lived for short periods in the home of the Blacks, but the life of the rich and the life of the ordinary were as different in the wizard world as they were in the muggle world. Snape allowed himself to look around with great interest, since that's what Russell would do.

There was a clatter of shoes on the stairs, and Granger appeared, dressed in robes like the others. She stopped dead at the sight of the elegantly cut suit and the highly polished Italian shoes. There was little doubt that she, at least, understood the social status that the clothing implied. "Oh," she said, "you're the American…" Then she blushed. "Sorry, that was rude. I'm Hermione Granger."

"Russell Moody." He noticed that Ron Weasley seemed put out that the two of them were talking. _Does the wind blow in that direction? This could be fun. Steady, Seve… Russ. Keep the goal in mind. Horcruxes are more important than watching Weasley squirm._

"Yeah," said Ron quickly. "We're supposed to make him feel at home. Do you play Quidditch? Me and Ginny are on the Gryffindor team at Hogwarts."

"I take it Quidditch is a game. What's Hogwarts?"

Stunned silence greeted this question. Then Ron got defensive. "It's just the greatest wizarding school in the world. What kind of wizard never heard of Hogwarts?"

"Ron!" snapped Hermione. "Be nice!"

"But he says he never heard of Hogwarts! That's just rubbish!"

"That's okay," said Russ calmly. "If it's just one of those hocus-pocus schools, I wouldn't have heard of it."

"Hocus-pocus! What kind of school do you go to?"

"College prep. I'm planning to go to Stanford."

"Is that a school?"

"Only the university where the daughter of the President of the United States is going this fall. But there's no reason you would know that."

"Hullo," said a cool voice from the stairs. "Fresh blood. You're the Moody kid, right?" George Weasley descended the last two steps with Fred right behind. "Has Ron-Ron showed you the grounds yet?"

"No," said Ron quickly. "Why don't you give him the tour?"

"I don't think that's such a good…" Hermione began, but Ron shushed her.

"He'll have a lot more fun with Fred and George than with us. His name's Russell, and these are my brothers, Fred and George. They'll really show you a good time." Ron's eyes were glittering, and he was having trouble stifling his laughter.

George threw an arm around Russ's shoulders and steered him out into the rear yard, away from the pavilions and the guests. "Ever see a real gnome?" he asked.

The gnomes were a ruse, of course. The twins got Russ out into the garden, then Fred tossed him a candy wrapped in blue paper. "Here, try one of these. They're really good."

Russ unwrapped it, but instead of putting it in his mouth, he held it to his nose and sniffed it. "Right," he said. "This is going to make my tongue swell to seven times its normal size."

"You're good," said George, clearly impressed. "How'd you know?"

"I could smell you a mile away." Russ said. He weighed the candy thoughtfully in his hand. "Does this dissolve?"

Fred looked at George, and George at Fred. "Why? What've you got in mind."

"If this much makes a tongue swell seven times, smaller doses would have a more subtle effect. If you put one, just one, in the punch bowl, most people wouldn't even notice. But the ones really chugging down the punch would start talking 'thomething like thith.'"

Fred took the candy from Russ's hand. "I'm on it," he said, and left.

George wrapped his arm around Russ's shoulders again. "I can see that we're going to have a very profitable relationship," he said. "What other ideas have you got?"

For the next half hour, Snape heard more about the Weasley joke shop than he would have believed possible. Basically, the twins were creative, but about as subtle as a cream pie in the face. It took Snape back to his own school days, and the thought of polishing the rough edges off of Fred and George was a lot more attractive to him than it should have been.

It was getting close to the first hour, though, and Russ excused himself to go to the restroom so that he could take a dose of the Polyjuice Potion. On reappearing among the guests, he was approached by Lupin, Tonks, Moody, and a wizard he vaguely knew by the name of Mylor Sylvanus. Moody looked nervous, but Sylvanus seemed thrilled.

"Remus has just been telling me that you're from San Francisco. I love that city. I had friends there in the eighties and used to visit them every couple of years." He eyed the suit and shoes appraisingly. "I'll bet you're from Pacific Heights and go to Lowell."

"St. Francis Wood, actually, sir… and I attend St. Ignatius."

"Upscale, but not flashy. I like that. You and I have to chat. Ah, but it looks as if we're being summoned for the ceremony. Catch you later." And Sylvanus was gone.

"You're good," said Moody. "I'll admit to being worried, but you knew exactly what he was talking about. What was he talking about?"

"Wealthy neighborhoods and college preparatory schools. If he's going to be collaring me everywhere we go, I'm going to have to do more studying. Luckily I'm too young to know any of his friends. Or any of the restaurants or night clubs he may have frequented."

"Well, let's watch Bill and Fleur tie the knot."

They were heading for the rows of chairs where the guests were settling to watch the ceremony, but were waylaid by Fred and George. "Sorry, Mr. Moody. We'd like to borrow your nephew awhile." They each seized an arm and started to haul him away. Moody tried to intervene, but Russ stopped him.

"It's all right, Uncle. We've met." Moody watched with some trepidation as Russ was hustled off behind the house.

"What do you mean, you don't have a wand?" Fred and George alternated speaking and sometimes talked at the same time.

"I don't do that stuff. Magic's lame."

"Lame? Didn't you ever learn any magic at all?"

"Dad sent me to this wizard Middle School when I was in the sixth grade, but they didn't teach anything useful so Mom took me out. That's why I'm going to a real school." _And if I'd gone to a real school instead of Hogwarts, I might have gotten into Imperial College and been a real scientist by now._

"So you can do magic."

"Some."

"We need something low-key. We've got to do something or we'll go crazy, but if it's too big and wrecks Bill's wedding, our parents will kill us. Or at least disown us. An idea. Any idea." Fred and George nodded to each other and then to Russ.

"Okay. Something I did when I was thirteen." Which was, interestingly enough, quite literally true. "It's a charm you put on a mirror so that anyone who admires himself in it for too long comes away cross-eyed. People who just glance in it, or who check if they've got spinach between their teeth – they're not affected. But if you stand there and preen for more than a minute, your eyes go cross-eyed. It wears off after about five minutes."

It took about a minute to teach the twins the spell, at which point they headed for the restrooms. By the time Fleur was finally ready to walk down the aisle, they'd caught Mylor Sylvanus, Sibyll Trelawney, Dedalus Diggle, and their own brother Percy.

Russ left the two and slipped into the chair Moody 'd kept for him. "That ought to keep them out of serious trouble for a while," he commented, then noticed Moody was looking past him at the house.

"Target acquired, nine o'clock," said Moody quietly.

Russ turned. Ron, Ginny, and Hermione were making their way to the rows of chairs. With them, joining the company for the first time that day, was Harry Potter.

The Minister and Bill Weasley took their places as the wedding music started.

"What happened to his face?" Russ whispered.

"Greyback got him during the fight at Hogwarts."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were kind of occupied. Unconscious as I recall."

"What about later? It would've been good to know. Arthur and Molly have gone through a lot."

"Sorry."

Fleur appeared, radiant and stunning, and everything else was forgotten, at least by the men in the crowd. Hands were joined, vows spoken, rings placed on fingers, and the first married kiss exchanged to the delight of an enraptured audience, who burst into applause. Everything was as gloriously perfect as Molly Weasley could have wished, and then everyone rose to go to the tables that magically appeared under the canopies, and the wedding brunch started.

The timing was excellent. Russ held a goblet under the table and tipped a dose of Polyjuice Potion into it, drank it, rinsed the goblet with water and consumed that, too. Across the yard it appeared there was a discussion going on between Hermione and Ginny on one side, and Harry and Ron on the other.

"Heads up," Moody warned as Ginny Weasley rose from their table and came over to where Moody and Russ were sitting.

"Mr. Moody, we were wondering if Russell would like to come over and join us. We could let him know what it's like living here, and we'd love to hear about California."

Moody looked at Russ. "Go on, lad. It'll do you good. Go join the youngsters."

Russ followed Ginny back to their table, where he held the chair next to Hermione for her, then sat next to Ginny. Hermione's satisfied little nod told him she understood. He'd positioned himself so that he'd never turn his back on one lady while he talked to the other. It was a seldom observed point of etiquette, but one he thought belonged to his role. The boys, however, seemed not to understand. Ron was pleased, but Harry glowered. _Interesting. The wind blows in that direction, too._

"Did you apparate here all the way from California in one leap?" Hermione asked. "It seems awfully far."

"I don't apparate. I don't know about here, but in California you have to be eighteen to apparate. I came on an airplane. Virgin Atlantic. A ten-hour flight." _Lily and I used to talk about taking airplanes. Maybe someday I really will._

"How old are you?" Ginny asked.

"Fifteen. I'll be sixteen in January."

"I understand you don't go to a wizarding school," Harry said.

"No. They don't really prepare you for a useful profession."

"What do you consider a useful profession?"

"I'm interested in astrophysics. One of the good things about coming to Britain is that I might be able to go to Cambridge and see Professor Hawking. I can't think of anyone stronger, or braver, or more…" He stopped at the sight of their blank faces. "Well, it was just a thought."

"I can think of nothing more important than fighting Lord Voldemort," said Harry.

Russ didn't react to the name. Snape wondered if he would have if the dark mark hadn't been taken away. It was an interesting point, seeing that Russ would have no dark mark even if Snape still did. Still, it was a purely academic question.

"Who's that?" Russ asked.

The others were shocked at the question, but Harry seemed particularly offended, almost as if it was a personal affront. "Voldemort is the most powerful evil wizard in the world."

"Britain, maybe. He hasn't made much of an imprint in the U.S."

"Maybe you just don't know anything about the rest of the world."

"Maybe since they don't teach geography in hocus-pocus schools this Lord Moldyvort doesn't realize there is a United States of America. Maybe he thinks if he tries to cross the ocean he'll fall off the edge of the world."

In spite of herself, Ginny giggled, and Russ flashed her a quick grin and a wink. This seemed to enrage Harry even more.

"People are being killed over here. Only a heartless monster would make jokes about it."

Russ bristled at that. "You know, I don't think you and I have been introduced. I'm Russell Moody."

"And I'm Harry Potter," the other boy said with a air that implied that should settle the matter.

"Now, Harry Potter, I'm not too thrilled at your calling me a…"

"Wait a minute, mate," said Ron. "You don't get it. This is Harry Potter."

"Yeah, I know. He said."

"The Boy Who Lived…"

"Duh… Look at me. I've somehow lived, too."

"No. Vol… You-Know-Who tried to kill Harry when he was one year old and…"

"You guys mess your pants over a wizard who couldn't kill a one-year-old baby?" Russ began to laugh.

"That's where he got the Scar."

"I was wondering about that. I take it you've got no plastic surgeons in England."

"Stop it!" Hermione screamed, causing heads at other tables to turn. She lowered her voice at once. "You," she said to Russ, "have got to accept that what we're talking about is serious, and you," this to Harry and Ron, "have got to accept that he doesn't know what you're talking about. Now I suggest you explain it, or stop bickering."

Which was exactly what Snape was angling for.

Nobody spoke up, so Hermione continued. "When… Voldemort went after Harry, he first killed both Harry's parents…"

"Sorry, I didn't know."

"That's okay," Harry said.

"Then he tried to kill Harry, but it rebounded onto him, and for a long time everyone thought Voldemort was dead. But he's come back now, and he's started killing people again. So the most important thing for us is to get rid of him…"

"That doesn't make sense."

"Oh, Mr. Genius thinks it doesn't…"

"Shut up, Ron!" Now it was Ginny who entered the argument. Turning to Russ, she asked, "What doesn't make sense?"

"Well, if people thought he was dead, what did they do with the body?"

"There wasn't any body."

"Then why did they think he was dead?"

"Because… I guess… all of a sudden he was gone…" Ginny was at a loss. She'd always believed what she'd been told, and had never really thought about it from that angle before.

"Look," said Ron. "The body was blasted away, but he made these things that would keep parts of his..."

"Ron!" Harry yelled. "Shut up!" Once again people at the other tables turned to stare.

"But he has to understand…"

"No, he doesn't! You just shut up!"

And there, on the edge of discovery, it stopped. Snape wanted to bang his head against a wall in frustration.

Into the tense silence a new, calm voice intruded.

"My, we are having a heated discussion. I hope mayhem is not intended." It was Professor McGonagall.

After a chorus of 'Good afternoon, Professor,' Hermione explained. "We were just trying to describe the current political situation to Mr. Moody's nephew."

"Ah, then you are Russell Moody. Alastor has mentioned you. You'll be interested in my news as well, I expect. The Board of Governors has decided to keep Hogwarts open."

Harry said nothing, but Ron nodded in satisfaction, "That's good, Professor," and the girls agreed.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Russ. "Why would this concern me?"

"Oh. Well, Alastor was telling me that you may be here for several months, and you'll have to keep up with your education during that time, so we thought Hogwarts…"

Even as she spoke, opposition was rising from all three boys. Harry and Ron sputtered and looked horrified. Russ, less intimidated, spoke up.

"No, ma'am. I don't think so. My junior year is crucial for my college applications. I'm taking AP Calculus, AP Physics, AP U. S. History, and Honors English. You can't keep me here… He can't keep me here and send me to a hocus-pocus school…"

"Why, I thought you would be pleased to be going to Hogwarts. It is more than equal to any wizarding school in America and…"

"I don't go to a wizarding school in America. I can't waste my time…"

"Waste your time! At Hogwarts?"

Suddenly, in despite of all Moody's plans, it became vitally important to Snape that Russell Moody not be forced to go to Hogwarts. It was as if this invented student, this fictional boy had, like Pinocchio, come to life. Russell had to take AP Calculus and study astrophysics at Stanford.

"You don't understand, ma'am. For what I want to do, the curriculum at Hogwarts isn't beneficial. It won't prepare me…"

"Any profession that Hogwarts can't prepare you for, young man, isn't worth pursuing."

"But I don't want a wizard's profession. I want…"

"Russell." It was Moody, and he was not pleased. "Russell, you will be polite to Professor McGonagall, and if it is necessary, you will attend Hogwarts. Your parents…"

"You're not talking about my parents! You're talking about my father! My father doesn't have the right to make these decisions! He doesn't have custody, my mother does!"

"You will not make a scene here. This is a wedding, and these people deserve a pleasant afternoon without your tantrums. You and I are leaving now."

They made their apologies to and took their leave of Arthur and Molly Weasley, then apparated back to Moody's home. Snape was too upset to notice, though Moody did, that the most sympathetic of those to watch them go was Hermione Granger, who seemed to feel intensely the plight of the half-blood boy who wanted desperately to be a muggle instead of a wizard.

xxxxxxxxxx

"You have no idea how much I want to wring your neck!" Moody screamed at Snape.

"Why don't you then!"

"Because you may actually have done something right!"

Snape and Moody glared at each other, then Snape sat down at the table and leaned his head on his left hand – the Polyjuice Potion had about ten minutes left. "I'm glad you think I did something right, because I was sure I got everything wrong."

"I will admit, I wasn't expecting the passion. You're going to have to explain this astrophysics thing to me. But they sure believed you. Lupin believed you. He may remember the name Russ, but he's never going to think that the kid he saw at the wedding is the same person as Severus Snape. And I wouldn't be surprised if you got invited back in the next couple of days."

"Why?"

"Molly Weasley. Her heart's just breaking for you, you poor little rich kid. I bet she's dying to hug you and feed you cookies…"

"Shut up!" Snape snapped, though truth be told the idea of being fed cookies by a sympathetic and maternal Molly Weasley was more attractive than he would ever allow Moody to realize.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Wednesday, July 23, 1997_

Moody was right, and the invitation came Tuesday to spend Wednesday at the Burrow. Bill and Fleur had left on their honeymoon, but the twins, Harry, and Hermione were staying until Harry's seventeenth birthday on the thirty-first.

The full moon had permitted Snape to start a new batch of Polyjuice Potion that was simmering in Moody's cellar, where ostensibly Snape's 'cage' was. In addition, he'd been experimenting with Moody's stock of potion, and had figured out how to enclose a dose in a gelatin capsule. He had to be sure to take it ten minutes before the old one wore off, but if he were seen he could claim it was allergy medication.

Moody and Russ apparated to the Burrow around ten in the morning, to be greeted at once by Molly Weasley. She was, in fact, standing guard to make sure that Fred and George didn't appropriate Russ immediately as they'd threatened to do. As this was a less formal occasion, Russ was wearing light colored slacks, a green shirt, and a sweater.

Ron, Harry, and Hermione had gone out for a walk, and the manner in which Molly relayed this information didn't quite conceal that they'd done so to avoid seeing Russ. Ginny, on the other hand, was there to help her mother with the hostess duties, so the four of them sat comfortably outside in the warm summer weather, over a pot of tea and a plate of cookies and small cakes.

"Any coffee?" Russ asked.

"Americans," Molly laughed indulgently, and conjured him a cup. She and Moody struck up a conversation and left the two youngsters to talk.

"What's it like in America?" Ginny asked, settling in a chair beside Russ, one leg curled under her.

"About like any place, I guess. You get up, you eat breakfast, you go to school…"

"That's right. You'd live at home and go to school every day."

"Don't you?"

"No, we live at Hogwarts during the school year."

"Boarding school. The only people I know who go to boarding school – it's because their parents want to get rid of them for a few months. But I guess with you, everybody goes to the same school."

"I guess so. All my brothers did. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Nope. I'm an only child."

"Then you get your own room and everything, I bet."

"You want to see a picture of our house?"

"Oh, yes."

Russ reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thin wallet, extracting from it a small photograph of himself and a woman standing in front of a three-storey, pale gray residence in the Italian palazzo style, surrounded by a thin ring of lawn and shaded by majestic trees. "That's my mom," he said.

"She's lovely. And the house is beautiful." There was a wistful note to Ginny's voice.

"It's all right. Mom likes it really neat, so a camera crew could come in off the street any minute and shoot a spread for a magazine layout. Kind of hard to relax in."

Ginny giggled. "You'll have no trouble relaxing in our house."

"May I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure."

"I kind of got the impression Sunday that there was something… I mean, you and that Potter guy… you know."

"There was." Ginny looked away now, down the road that led away from the Burrow. "He broke it off, though. He's got a mission, and he doesn't want me involved."

"I'd say that makes him a first-class idiot."

Ginny looked over at him and smiled.

It was time for Moody to leave. "I'll be back after supper to take you home," he said, then steered Russ away from Molly and Ginny as if to give him a lecture about behaving. Instead he whispered, "What's with you and Ginny?"

"She's using me. I'm her weapon."

"What do you mean?"

"Potter's broken up with her, and she's going to use me to make him angry."

"Are you going to play along?"

"Why not? It's her game and may help us. It should be interesting."

"Good luck." Moody stepped away and disapparated.

The instant Moody vanished, Fred and George appeared. "Thought he'd never leave," said Fred. "Can we talk?"

Russ looked over at Ginny. "It wouldn't be polite to abandon the lady," he said. "Can she come, too?"

Fred and George looked at each other. "Sure, why not? About time the younger members of the family got involved in the business. You just don't discuss it with Mum, got it?"

A quick assent from Ginny sealed the deal, and the four of them retreated to the far end of the garden.

"You know we've got this joke shop in London, see. Diagon Alley. Sometimes we want to get rid of customers who're…"

"…behaving rudely. But we don't want to put off or scare away the others, so we need a way to…"

"…gently encourage people – well, one person at a time –"

"…to leave. Quietly."

"We've got a bunch of ideas, but they're not quiet."

It was a serious matter, far too complex to resolve in the hour or so before lunch, but the four had a rollicking good time discussing the merits of forgetfulness spells, redirection, the selective manipulation of vermin, and sudden urgent attacks of digestive disorders. By the time Molly called them to eat, Fred and George were laughing expansively, Ginny was giggling, and Russ had a cat-that-ate-the-cream expression on his face.

As the quartet neared the house, three others were seen exiting it. Ginny suddenly slipped her arm into Russ's and began talking animatedly. "That was honestly the most fun I've had in ages… Where do you come up with those ideas? I still can't stop laughing… Oh, hello, Hermione, Ron… Harry. Did you enjoy your walk?"

It was a classic moment, one that Russ would have enjoyed savoring awhile, but Harry was clearly not in the mood to savor classic moments. He turned on his heel and stomped into the house.

Russ leaned slightly to his left and whispered in Ginny's ear, "Ginny one – Harry zero."

The look of delight that blossomed on Ginny's face was unmistakable. "I'm so glad you don't mind. I felt kind of guilty."

"Not to worry. I'll be going home next month anyway. Besides, I don't usually date older women."

No one else heard the exchange. What they saw were the smiles, the pressing of an arm, and the clear meeting of kindred minds. Ron was irate, Hermione looked worried, and the twins considered it the greatest joke since U-No-Poo.

Into this mix Molly Weasley stepped innocently and earnestly. "Lunch is on the table. Everyone inside, now. Harry? Harry, dear… Come on down and eat. We're all ready and waiting for you."

Lunch wasn't too bad. Russ admired the house, praised Molly's cooking, and was generally quiet and well-behaved, answering when asked, but not making any challenging statements. Molly thought he was the sweetest thing, Fred and George thought he was the greatest con artist they'd ever met, and Ginny was laying out snares.

"Is there anything you like about England?" Hermione asked. "Don't think, just let something come out."

"It's green."

"Why do you say that?"

"It doesn't rain in California during the summer. Not much in the spring either. Everything goes golden brown. Here things stay green, and you don't have to spend a fortune watering them." Russ was hoping she wouldn't ask too many questions before he had a chance to study some more. "Have you ever been out of Britain."

"Oh, yes. But just to the continent."

Ron interrupted the two-way conversation. "I've been to Egypt. We all went one summer about four years ago. It was neat – the pyramids and all."

When lunch was over, the young people went back outside. This time Harry stayed with them. Ron was completely without subtlety, placing himself blatantly between Hermione and Russ, but Harry let Ginny sit next to the guest without comment.

"So, you never saw a Quidditch game?" Ron said, just to give them something to talk about. "I didn't think it was possible for a wizard not to know about Quidditch."

"Now hold on, Ron," said Harry. "I didn't know about Quidditch until after I got to Hogwarts."

"Yeah, but you didn't know you were a wizard either."

"How do you not know you're a wizard?" Russ asked. "I mean, I know my dad's a wizard. I don't like it, but I know about it."

Harry made a effort to be polite. "I'm actually like you. My dad was a pureblood wizard, but my mom was muggle-born. Of course, she was a witch, but born into a family of muggles."

"Can you do that? I thought you were either one or the other."

"No," said Hermione. "I'm muggle-born myself. My parents don't have any wizard blood, but I'm a witch."

"Are you a mutant, then?"

Ron was on his feet in an instant. "You take that back! You take that back or I'll punch you in the face!" The fact that he was considerably taller than Russ, with a longer reach, made this no idle threat.

"Look, I'm sorry, but I didn't mean it to be insulting. I was thinking of the science – the biology. Wouldn't the wizard gene be either a recessive trait or a mutation? But it can't be recessive, or I wouldn't have the magic thing. Maybe it's not completely recessive. Anyway, wouldn't a witch born to a non-wizard family be because the non-wizards weren't one hundred percent non-wizards to begin with, or because there was a genetic mutation that produced a wizard gene?"

They looked at Russ blankly, and he shrugged. "Okay, so they don't teach genetics in hocus-pocus schools either." He turned to Harry. "You were talking about your family."

"I was raised by my muggle aunt and uncle. They didn't want me to be a wizard, and they did everything they could to keep me from finding out about my parents. I learned about them on my eleventh birthday, when I got my letter of admission to Hogwarts."

"They must have told you something about how your parents died."

"They said it was a car crash, and that my father was a lazy good-for-nothing. I found out later he was like your dad – rich and from a pureblood family – and that he died fighting Voldemort."

Russ was on unsure ground since Snape and Moody hadn't yet worked out all the details, but he reasoned that if he kept as close to the truth as possible, he'd be less likely to be found out. "My dad's not rich. The money's in my mother's family. My dad's… hard to live with. That's why they're divorcing."

He knew it wasn't a surprise. He'd mentioned a custody problem on Sunday. Still, the others looked embarrassed, and there was a shift in mood – almost as if they were beginning to feel sorry for him.

Russ began to move the conversation to more immediate concerns. "My uncle said you were about to have a birthday. Seventeenth, no? That means all this happened sixteen years ago."

That remark was greeted with silence as Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all looked to Harry.

"That was before he killed Dumbledore." Harry said flatly.

_Steady. Steady. You have to stay calm. You don't know what happened, you don't have to be defensive. Just let them talk, and listen to every word and nuance._ "Who's Dumbledore?"

Now Hermione took up the tale. "Albus Dumbledore was the headmaster at Hogwarts. You heard Professor McGonagall say the school would stay open. They weren't sure, because about seven weeks ago Professor Dumbledore was killed…"

"Murdered!" Harry spat out.

"…murdered at Hogwarts by one of Voldemort's agents."

"By a filthy sneaking traitor! And if I ever see him again, I'm going to kill him myself!"

_Steady. Don't try to defend him. It isn't important. Besides, you've just come from America. You don't know what happened._ "I didn't know you'd lost your… headmaster. How was he killed?"

"A bunch of Voldemort's people got into the school," Hermione continued. "We were fighting them off when one of them – a double agent that we thought was a teacher – showed up and killed Professor Dumbledore with a Killing Curse. Then he and the others escaped."

"They're with their master now, the filthy cowards."

"Harry witnessed the murder. It's been hard for him."

"That's tough," said Russ.

"Yeah," replied Harry, "so you see we weren't too thrilled with your attitude on Sunday."

"There're things I don't understand."

"Like what?"

"Well, if this Voldemort disappeared when you were one, and everyone thought he was dead, where did he go? And why didn't people realize he wasn't dead? And when did he come back?"

Ron glanced over at Harry. "He made these things to hold pieces…"

"Shut up, Ron!"

"Come on, Harry! He might be able to help. Fred and George say he's really clever."

"No! This is my business. He left it to me, and I'm going to do it. And where do you get off, anyway, trusting someone you've only known for a couple of days?"

The two girls were looking embarrassed, while Russ said nothing. It was Ron and Harry now, and Russ sensed this was an argument that had been going on for some weeks now.

"Well it isn't like this was just anybody! It is Mr. Moody's nephew!"

"And we thought someone else was Moody for a whole year, so that really makes me feel secure."

"Come on, Harry. Lighten up!"

"Bring back Dumbledore and I'll lighten up. Give me five minutes with Snape or Voldemort and I'll lighten up. But until you can do something constructive, don't tell me to lighten up!" Harry rose from his chair and stormed back into the house, leaving the others staring stupidly at the ground.

"And to think," said Ron finally. "All this because I wanted to talk to you about Quidditch."

It wasn't the only argument that day, for in the evening another one flared at Moody's house.

"And he's right! He's absolutely right! There's no reason for him or anyone else to trust some half-baked wizard's brat who just walked off an airplane! We've got to stop this."

Moody glumly shook his head. "Which puts us right back onto square one. At least now we've got that foot in the door. Ginny likes you. Fred and George like you. Hermione and Ron are disposed to be friendly. That's not a bad record for two day's work, you know."

"The problem is that the others are useless if we don't have Potter. Potter's the one who spent all those hours talking to Dumbledore. He's the one with the information we need."

"He's the one who wants to kill you."

"Maybe we should let him."

"Boyo, you need a rest. You've been pushing yourself too hard."

Snape glared at Moody. "This masquerade was not my idea."

"No, it was mine. And a thumping good one it was. And you pulled it off to perfection. Lupin believes you, Molly believes you, heck even Harry believes you. He doesn't like you, but he believes you. I bet we could take you right up to Voldemort right now and he'd believe you, too."

"Not even in jest. I'm warning you. Not even in jest. If it comes to that choice, I'll kill myself and spare Potter the trouble."

"Which leaves us no closer to a solution." Moody stumped around the room, his wooden leg punctuating his words. "Harry talks to his friends. He's told them something about horcruxes. Granted Harry won't talk, but Ron wanted to. Ron can't tell us everything, but he can probably tell us more than we know now. You want to abandon the tale because Harry won't talk to you, but I say continue working on the others. We may not need Harry."

"I think we do. And the further we take the tale, the harder it'll be for him to trust you later on."

"What about you?"

"He's never going to trust me. I think you'd better start storing my memories for your pensieve. You may not have the opportunity later on."

"You're getting fatalistic all of a sudden."

"I might be less so if you gave me my wand. At least then I could defend myself if I had to."

"Oh, no. I give you a wand, and you're out of here like a bat out of Hell. I'm not that stupid."

xxxxxxxxxx

One close call came the following Saturday morning. Snape was sitting in Moody's kitchen looking at some new books when Moody rushed in.

"Lupin's coming. He wants to talk to me, but he'll want to see you. I'll stall him, but you've got to move fast."

Snape grabbed a bottle of capsules and swallowed one quickly with a glass of water. A few minutes later he was changing into Russell Moody. Pulling a bathrobe over his clothes, he went out toward the garden where Lupin had arrived and was talking with Moody.

"Good morning, Russell," Lupin said cheerfully. "I hope things are going well."

"Well enough, thank you, Mr. Lupin," Russ replied, staying in the doorway.

"Russell, would you go up to your room for about a half hour? We have business to discuss."

"Do I have to?"

"It would be best."

"Yes, sir."

Russ headed for the stairs, removing the robe on the way, then slipped out the back door and through a basement window into the cellar and the half of the room that was shielded – shielded except for the window he'd just come through. There he took another capsule and morphed back into Snape before Moody and Lupin came down the stairs. He was rude enough to show Lupin that he hated his confinement, and managed just once to touch the shield so that Lupin would hear the sizzle of the electric shock.

Lupin's business was short and mostly with Moody, concerning as it did the security arrangements for Potter's birthday – a low-key gathering for a few select friends. After he left, Moody came down to the cellar.

"Gad, I hate doing that," Snape said.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Thursday, July 31, 1997 (two days before the new moon)_

Harry's seventeenth birthday was a day of changeable weather, overcast and rainy, with fleeting moments of cloud-spattered sunshine, so most of the day the celebrants were confined to the Burrow. There weren't many of them. In addition to Harry himself, Molly and her four younger children, and Hermione, Harry was joined by Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Lupin, and Tonks. Just before lunch, Moody arrived with his nephew in tow. Russ looked somehow less well-groomed than before, as if his clothes were a couple of sizes too large.

"What's he doing here?" Harry demanded.

"Now, Harry. You wouldn't deny me the pleasure of wishing you a happy birthday, would you? And I can't leave him by himself – it wouldn't be right."

Russ was introduced to Neville and Luna, and found himself sitting next to Luna at lunch.

"You were lucky to get out of California when you did," Luna told him as they helped themselves to sandwiches. "There's about to be another earthquake."

Russ stared at her, but most of his shock was due to the fact that one of these wizard children even knew California had earthquakes. "How do you know?" he said.

"It's the year 1997. That's a prime number."

"Nineteen eighty-nine and 1994 weren't prime numbers."

"That was a ruse to lull people into a false sense of security."

"Doesn't the fact that the magnetic pole has slipped .005 degrees further west than it should be alter your calculations?"

Luna studied Russ speculatively. "Have the sea bass migrations been interrupted?"

"By global warming and decreased salinity in the North Atlantic."

"Well, maybe California's safe then."

After lunch, while Moody was occupied talking to Lupin, Russ approached Harry. "Is there someplace quiet where we can talk?" he asked.

"What's wrong with here?"

"I have a birthday present for you, but I'd rather he didn't know about it." Russ nodded toward Moody.

"Sounds like you're just trying to get me isolated from everyone else. Why should I trust you?"

"Bring anyone you like. Just not him."

Harry caught Ron's eye and jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. Quietly the three boys started up the staircase toward the top of the house. As they climbed, Russ realized that others were following, and he guessed they were Hermione and Ginny.

The top room was apparently Ron's. Russ entered first, with the other two boys right behind. When he turned around, he found himself facing their drawn wands. "Okay, hot shot," said Harry. "What did you want to show me?" Behind him Russ could see the shocked faces of the two girls, and from the bottom of the stairs Moody's voice roared, "Russ, where are you?"

Russ held his hands out, palms up. "I don't have a wand," he said.

"Don't worry. We just believe in being cautious."

"Just for the record, I don't have a wand."

"We heard you. Now, what did you want to show me?"

Russ reached into his pocket and drew out a small medicine bottle full of gray capsules. Behind Hermione and Ginny, Moody was stumping, breathless, to the top of the stairs. "Russ!" he panted, "what do you think you're doing?"

"Giving Harry a birthday present."

"Don't be a fool!" Moody yelled, as Harry and Ron blocked him from entering the doorway, and Harry asked, "What are they?"

"Polyjuice pills. The last one I took should be wearing off in less than five minutes."

They waited, even Moody resigned and silent. After a few minutes, Russ began to change. His face narrowed, and his hair darkened and grew. He became thinner and a little taller, and his left arm dropped weakly to his side. Before the metamorphosis ended, Snape knew they already recognized him. He kept his right arm raised, palm open, as hatred gathered in Potter's eyes.

"You!" Potter spat at him.

"Happy birthday," Snape replied. He held himself absolutely still as Potter advanced until the tip of Potter's wand lay directly over his heart. Moody struggled with Ron, then burst into the room, his own wand out but pointed at the floor. By now the rest had climbed the stairs as well, and Lupin was trying to push his way into the room.

"I'm going to kill you," Potter whispered.

"Be my guest."

"Harry! Harry, he's not armed!" Moody pleaded.

"Neither was Dumbledore."

"Use your head, Harry. Why would he just let you kill him like this?"

"He's working for that 'Lord' of his. He came here to spy on us and kill us, too."

"Then why hasn't he got a wand? Why does he apparate here with me? He never got back to Voldemort, Harry. He's been in my custody for two months. Ask Remus."

Potter turned to Lupin in fury. "You've known! You've known all this time where he was, and you didn't tell me!"

"He was sick, Harry. He nearly died." Lupin himself was clearly angry, too, having realized how much he'd been deceived.

"Then you did me a favor taking care of him. If he'd died, I wouldn't have the privilege of killing him." Potter faced Snape again. "I'm going to enjoy this."

They were of a height, and they faced each other, eye to eye. Snape closed his mind, not trying to read Potter, utterly still, his body rigid with tension. Then, abruptly, Potter swore, spun around, and shoved the others roughly aside as he clattered down the stairs.

In the moment when the gathered company resumed breathing, Snape clutched his left arm and swayed slightly, his heart pounding so loudly he was sure the others could hear it. Moody supported him, his rage now finding an outlet.

"You idiot! You fool! It'd serve you right if he did kill you! Did I tell you not to pull a damned stunt like this!"

Chaos exploded as everyone spoke at once.

"Moody, what are you bringing into my house! How dare you!"

"Professor Snape? But that mirror gag was so good!"

"You might have trusted me. I thought we were working on the same side."

"Harry! Harry! Wait for me!"

Moody hustled Snape out of the room and down the stairs. "Molly," he panted as she hurried beside him, "I owe you abject apologies, but I have to deal with this first." They reached the ground floor, and he pointed his wand, binding Snape's wrists in front of him, causing Snape to gasp at the pain in his left arm. Then Moody dragged his prisoner out into the yard in front of the house. "I'll be back Molly. I'll make this up to you, I swear." Holding Snape firmly, he disapparated.

The cellar prison was now truly a prison, the shielding covering every square inch of the tiny area where Snape was allowed to move. He lay motionless on the cot provided as a bed while for two days Moody cursed and vilified. him. It was an unmitigated disaster. Potter more suspicious than ever, the Order no longer listening to his advice, deserted even by Lupin… "And all because you didn't want to take Polyjuice any more! You didn't want to associate with students! You didn't want to be without a wand! I should have left you there in Oxford. If you'd died there, at least Harry might be talking to me now!"

On the second day, in full flow of vindictiveness, Moody paused, listening. "Visitor. You be quiet." He went upstairs while Snape closed his eyes and lay still, his good arm covering his forehead.

A few minutes later, Moody returned, suddenly calmer and almost pleasant. "Someone wants to see you," he said.

Into the cellar behind him stepped Hermione Granger.

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	3. Chapter 3 – Forming Alliances

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Forming Alliances**

Snape rose to his feet when he saw Granger. Miss Granger now, of course, since she was not only of age, but had ceased to be his pupil after the events of June. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" he said stiffly.

"Curiosity more than anything, I suppose. You left us with a lot of questions."

"Are you representing the others, then?"

"No. They don't know I'm here."

"I hope your act of charity doesn't jeopardize your position with your friends."

"Harry's furious with himself that he didn't have the strength to kill you. Mrs. Weasley's relieved. The rest of us are more puzzled than anything. Where did you go that night, and why did Mr. Lupin say you nearly died?"

Snape took half a step forward, hit the shield and was zapped. Granger winced. "Is that necessary?" she asked Moody. "It looks like it hurts."

"Hang on," Moody growled. "We'll probably be more comfortable upstairs with some tea." He turned his back to Snape, muttered a charm, and the shield went down. "Keep your hand on your wand, though. I wouldn't put it past him to try to run."

"Where would I run to?" Snape asked.

Upstairs, Moody described the scene at the apartment in Oxford as briefly as possible. "I want to ask you to do something that's going to be unpleasant for you. I want you to look at his arm."

"That isn't necessary, Moody," Snape said. "She doesn't have to go through that."

"I think it would help if Miss Granger had a solid understanding of what you were facing the moment you left Hogwarts that night. What happened on that tower didn't please Voldemort, it enraged him."

Snape looked toward the window while Moody unwrapped the arm. Granger was silent as the bandages were rewound. When Snape turned back, she looked pale and sick. "I suppose it's silly to ask if it hurts."

"Not silly, no. It hurts. But I still have an arm."

"Why did you do it, if it would only get you in trouble with… him?"

"Professor Dumbledore told me to throw him from the tower. He needed me to get the Death Eaters out of Hogwarts before they started attacking the students in general, and he reasoned that would be most easily effected if they believed me to be one of them. He implied that he wouldn't come to any real harm."

"Harry didn't hear him tell you anything."

"It was a mental communication," said Moody. "Have you ever looked at a pensieve memory?"

Granger shook her head. "Harry told us about them, though."

Moody pulled out the pensieve and the little vial that contained Snape's memory of that night. Moody had never replaced it in Snape's mind, wanting it available to review at his own leisure. Granger watched, fascinated, as the scene spun out, nodding as she listened to Dumbledore's instructions in the gravely voice of the legilimency connection.

"Harry needs to see this," she said when it was done.

"Do you really think he'll accept it?" Moody asked.

"No. Not really." She looked at Snape. "He's hated you for a long time."

"Dumbledore told me."

"What was the memory he said he was giving you?"

"You go straight to the point," laughed Moody. "I wish the rest of the Order was as quick." He took out another vial and poured it into the pensieve. Again there was silence as Granger watched the images.

"Harry said it was awful. I didn't realize before how awful it was."

Moody pointed to a frozen image of the locket in the basin. "I think there's something inside. I can see the edge of a paper, though Russ says he can't"

Granger stiffened. "I think you can drop that story. I know Russ isn't real, remember."

"Sorry. I was getting used to it. It really is his name, you know. Short for Severus, however, not for Russell. When he woke up after three weeks and I asked him his name, he said it was Russ Snape."

"Really? Well, that's not so bad then. I guess. I kind of like knowing it wasn't all a lie. Oh, and there was a paper in the locket. It said the real locket was taken and replaced by a fake one. It was signed just R.A.B. We don't know who that was."

"We do," said Snape. "It was Sirius Black's younger brother, Regulus. We think now that stealing the locket was the reason he was executed."

Hermione looked at both of them in wonder. "Are you sure that's who it was?" she asked.

"Reasonably sure," answered Moody. "We had an idea it might be him for other reasons, and the initials strengthen our suppositions."

"What other reasons?"

"The words Professor Dumbledore was speaking after he started drinking the green liquid," Snape explained, "were identical to those spoken by Regulus during his torture, just before his execution in 1979."

"How do you know that?"

"We were all forced to witness it. As a warning to other potential traitors. We believe the 'them' he was talking of referred to his family."

"Do you know what he did with the real locket?"

"We think he took it home and hid it at number twelve."

"Right about that time," Moody continued, "his father began fortifying the house with extraordinary security precautions. They already had the house-elf, but they added new spells including making the house unplottable. We think now that this was because of the presence of the locket."

"Unfortunately," went on Snape, "the building became headquarters for the Order. The Fidelius Charm gave access to people who would otherwise never be able to get in, among them Mundungus Fletcher. When Potter sent the house-elf away last year, the contents of the house lost their protection, and Fletcher was able to abscond with a large number of items."

"We know," said Hermione. "Harry caught him."

"Caught him?" cried Moody. "How?"

"We saw him in Hogsmeade last October. Ron recognized some goblets, and Harry threatened Mundungus. He went to Dumbledore, who said he'd already heard, and that Mundungus would be stopped. That's the last we heard of it until he was arrested."

"Already heard. That would have been right after I told him that Fletcher had sold an item to a Death Eater, and that Bella was on the rampage. What was he doing in Hogsmeade?"

Hermione thought for a moment. "He was talking to that tall, thin barman from the Hog's Head Inn."

That seemed to puzzle Snape. "I've… run into him before. But isn't he Professor Dumbledore's brother?"

Moody threw back his head in laughter. "Aberforth Dumbledore might have the locket the two greatest wizards in Britain were looking for? Gad that's rich!"

"We don't know for sure," Snape reminded him. "Fletcher could have been selling to wizards and muggles up and down Britain."

"Yes, but so far we only know about two of them. Your Death Eater buddy got a box. We need to find out what Aberforth got."

"How do you suggest we do that?"

"Well first we go to Hogsmeade."

"Get stuffed!" Snape exclaimed. "Go to Hogsmeade yourself! I've chaperoned students there for sixteen years. Every merchant in town knows me. And I've… had problems with that barman before, too."

The last comment made Hermione give Snape a strange look, but she said nothing.

It was Moody who stated the obvious. "They know you, but they don't know my nephew Russell."

"No. Absolutely not. I am not…"

"Aberforth knows me. The two of you'd have an easier time snooping while I distracted him."

"You're assuming Miss Granger wants to get involved."

"Oh, but I do! At least right now I do."

"All right, but I want my wand!"

"I'm not giving you a wand and that's all there is to it!"

Moody sent Snape upstairs with the bottle of Polyjuice capsules, and he returned in a few minutes as Russ, dressed in blue jeans, a denim jacket, and tennis shoes.

"What I'm going to do," said Moody, "is try to keep Aberforth occupied while you search his rooms and see if you can find the locket. We'll apparate into the fields east of Hogsmeade and go separately to the Hog's Head…"

"No we won't," said Russ. "Not until we straighten out a couple of things first."

"I'm not giving you a wand."

"I'm not asking for a wand." Russ turned to Hermione. "Have you ever side-by-side apparated where you were in charge?"

"No," she replied.

"So we're up in the inn, and someone walks in on us, and she apparates to safety, but I'm stuck."

"She'll take you with her."

"And splinch me in the process. I want to practice first."

It was a good thing they practiced because Hermione did splinch Russ the first time. It wasn't a bad splinch, just part of the left hand, but Russ seemed to think that Uncle Alastor wasn't showing sufficient concern, words were exchanged, and Moody left in a huff declaring that Russ would have to put himself back together because 'I don't do jigsaw puzzles.'

Russ spent some time convincing Hermione that it wasn't her fault at all and talking her through the spells that would reattach the three fingers, all the while castigating Moody for not making the job easier by allowing him the use of his own wand.

The second and third apparations were performed without a hitch.

xxxxxxxxxx

Moody entered the inn first, and attempted to engage Aberforth's attention by trying to stay out of his sight, thereby arousing his suspicions. Afterwards Russ sent Hermione in to reconnoiter. "It's easy. Just get in far enough to look up the stairs and along the upper corridor. Then you can visualize it and apparate us in up there. He'll never notice."

Oddly enough, it worked. The two then set off to investigate the various rooms. Most of them were for paying customers, but up under the eaves of the inn was a cramped little room loaded with piles of what could charitably be called junk. It was a treasure trove. Or it would have been had the two had time to examine the various things at leisure.

In the end the search was ridiculously easy. If at any time in the previous ten months Aberforth had had an inkling of how important the locket was, he probably would have cast protective spells around it. As it was just another trinket, he tossed it into a drawer with a load of other pretties. Hermione and Russ found it in ten minutes, pocketed it, and disapparated.

A few moments later, Russ paused in front of the Hog's Head, checked his wristwatch, then continued on to Honeydukes. Moody counted to fifty, rose and followed him, and together the three apparated back to Moody's home. Russ hadn't even had to take a second pill.

In the first flush of victory, they laid the locket on the kitchen table and basked in the feel of success. Moody broke out a bottle of firewhisky and poured drinks, and they toasted a mission well executed. At that moment, Russ began to turn back into Snape, and had to rush off to change clothes, Snape being just a touch taller than he was.

When he returned, Snape said, "Do we destroy it, or what?"

"Oh, no," replied Granger. "It's Harry's task. He has to destroy them."

"What does it matter," countered Moody, "as long as the nasty things are destroyed."

"It might matter to Potter," said Snape. "Remember, there's at least one more, and he's the only one with clues to its whereabouts. We don't want to antagonize him."

After some inconclusive discussion, Granger returned to the Burrow. It was decided that Moody would find a way to communicate to Potter that he had the locket and try to make some kind of deal.

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_Monday, August 4, 1997_

"Why can't you take me with you?"

"Everyone's angry with you, especially Harry. It'd only make my job harder."

"They're angry with you, too."

"For lesser reasons. I may be able to talk my way out of it."

"Then give me my wand. Or let me stay out of that cage."

"And have you not here when I get back? No way."

"So when he comes for me, I'll be sitting here like hors d'oeuvres on a platter."

"He's not coming for you. And if you make one move to get out, next time I'll hogtie you and stick an apple in your mouth."

Moody returned later that afternoon, and he was not happy with his day's work.

"Hates your guts, eh?" said Snape as he wolfed down a very belated lunch. "Can't say as I blame him, you devious old scoundrel. I'd hate you, too. Come to think of it, I do hate you, too."

"I saved…"

"…my life. I know. You've pounded that one into the ground. But if I'm going to be your slave for the rest of my existence because of it…"

"There are three more. Horcruxes."

"What! He told you that?"

"No. The way he feels now, he wouldn't tell me the time. He was thinking it, though, and I read him. That boy has the occlumency ability of a garden snail."

"Tell me about it."

"One of them is some kind of a cup thing."

"Really? Dumbledore did say it made sense."

"What made sense?"

"The tarot cards. He had me looking at magical symbolism and artifacts, and the suits of the tarot cards seemed to mean something. Wands, cups, swords, and coins."

"Well, there's a cup, but Harry doesn't know that I know. He wants the locket and considers the fact that I've got it to be a personal affront. I told him I'd share my information if he'd share his. So far no deal. He's determined to do this alone. I'm afraid all I've done with him is make him determined to come here and get the locket away from me."

Snape's fork paused in mid air. "Coming here? With me locked down in that cellar like a rat in a trap? You can't do this to me, Moody."

Moody looked up, suddenly alert. "You may be spared that, boyo. Looks like you'll at least be able to move. Someone's just arrived. Stay here."

Though he hadn't heard the first pop, Snape heard the others. If someone was coming in, that someone had been followed. He rose and went toward the front of the house to see. Moody was already out the door, wand drawn but held loosely in his hand.

It wasn't Potter, though. It was Fred and George Weasley, with Granger right on their heels. At the sight of Moody, they put away their wands. "Expecting someone else, Moody old boy?" said Fred. "Ron still hasn't passed his test, and Harry and Neville only just turned seventeen. None of them can legally apparate."

"Which gives us a great advantage," added George.

"What are you doing here?" was all Moody said.

"Come to see where you've got the professor locked up." George looked around as if expecting to see a jail cell in the yard. "I wouldn't like that job, I can tell you. Bet he keeps you jumping."

At that moment Fred spied Snape in the shadow of the doorway. "Afternoon, Professor! We thought you might like a change from this old curmudgeon. Blimey, what's wrong with your arm?"

Although far from delighted to see the Weasleys, Snape decided at once to play along with them. He had a sudden feeling that they might be invaluable in getting him out from under Moody's thumb.

The five of them went into the house where Moody got sandwiches for the twins – who were perennially hungry – and tea for everyone. Fred was fascinated by Snape's sling and kept reaching out for it. Finally, exasperated, Snape said, "Do you really want to see it?"

Both twins nodded emphatically, but Hermione quietly got up and left the room as Moody again unwound the bandages. With the removal of the last length of gauze, George breathed, "Wicked…" in unfeigned awe, while Fred's eyes glittered as he asked, "Can I touch it?"

Snape's eyes narrowed, "What will you give me if I say yes?"

Fred grinned. "Lifelong devotion."

"I'll take it."

Sitting very still, Snape allowed Fred and George to hold and finger the mutilated arm – the thick, crusted scab, the shiny second-degree burns that barely concealed bone and tendon, the skeletal contours where flesh had been cut away – knowing that his position in their esteem had been immeasurably enhanced by the experience. When Moody finally pushed the twins away and bound the arm again, he had no clue of the depth of the spiritual bond that had just been formed between the three, but Snape did. Fred and George would have fit very well into the Slytherin-Gryffindor hex wars of the seventies.

Hermione returned, and the twins began talking about Diagon Alley. They wanted 'Russ' to come to their joke shop and look around. Moody was not thrilled at the idea.

"Why not?" Snape demanded. "I can't do anything in Diagon Alley. I won't have a wand, I can't apparate, and I don't dare show my real face. Everyone there would recognize me." He stopped and looked at the twins and Hermione. "Does anyone else besides the people at Potter's birthday celebration know that Moody's nephew is me?"

"No," said Hermione. "Harry doesn't trust anyone enough to tell them, and the others don't want to hurt Moody until they know more about what's happening. I think Harry's pleased with that because he doesn't want anyone to get you but him."

"There!" Snape told Moody triumphantly. "There's nothing I could do and nowhere I could go. Let me spend an hour or two in Diagon Alley. I'm going crazy in that cellar." Moody still resisted until Snape reminded him, "I obeyed you in Hogsmeade. I did what you asked and I didn't try to get away."

"All right. But just for a couple of hours. And you," – this was directed to Fred and George – "you don't let him out of your sight, not for one minute. Are you going, Hermione?"

She nodded. "That's where we told Mrs. Weasley we were going. She said it was all right if Fred and George took care of me."

Snape went back upstairs to change into Russ's clothes and take the first Polyjuice pill. The twins stopped him when he came back downstairs as Russ and demanded to see the bottle. The concept of putting Polyjuice potion into capsules had apparently given them several new ideas.

The four apparated into a nook behind a building in an alley branching off Charing Cross Road. A couple of streets away was the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron, which had a few customers in it when the quartet passed through, Fred and George greeting everyone en route.

They made it easily through the brick wall into Diagon Alley, where large numbers of students were already buying their books and equipment for the next school year. Word had clearly gotten out that Hogwarts would stay open, and even the events of June were not discouraging too many students from attending. In general, parents still had the idea that Hogwarts would be safer than most other places.

Fred and George attracted considerable attention and, like the Pied Piper, were leading a respectable parade of youngsters by the time they reached their store. A large percentage of these followers had been afraid that the joke shop would be closed all day, and word that it was, in fact, about to open spread like wildfire through the other businesses.

George stayed in the front tending to customers while Fred and Hermione took Russ into the back to talk. Russ, however, didn't want to discuss practical jokes.

"Tell me what's been happening at Ollivanders," he said as soon as they were alone.

"Him? He disappeared. Everyone thinks he was kidnapped. Thought you knew."

"Of course I know about that. I mean what's happening at the wand shop."

"Oh. It was sealed off for a while – investigation and all – then the Ministry let the family go in and remove some of the stock. They've opened another shop down the street a ways."

"I didn't even know he had a family. Did they take out all the wands?"

"No, not even a quarter of them. Just some of the cheaper ones so that students could still get wands for school or people could get replacements. The Ministry is controlling every wand that goes out of the old shop. I think they're afraid Ollivander will do something nasty to them if he comes back and they've let the family pillage the place."

"Can we get in?"

Fred grinned. "I don't see why not," he said.

Hermione wasn't happy with the direction of the conversation. When Fred went out to help George, she told Russ accusingly, "You're not supposed to have a wand. Mr. Moody said…"

"Mr. Moody doesn't understand the gravity of the situation. Listen, Miss Granger. You saw the place where he has me locked up. Those shields are calibrated so that I can't go through them, but anyone else can. What will happen to me if the Dark Lord finds out where I am and sends people after me? They'll be able to get to me, but I won't be able to get away or even to defend myself. Have you ever heard the phrase 'shooting fish in a barrel?' That's how easy it is to take me right now. Moody doesn't seem to understand the vulnerability of my position. I'm not going to run away from him, but I have to be able to protect myself."

It sounded reasonable, and Hermione agreed not to interfere as long as Russ agreed not to leave Moody.

"There was something else I wanted to ask you about," Russ said. "Has Potter spoken to you at all about the remaining Horcruxes?"

"Like the locket? A little. Professor Dumbledore thought that You-Know-Who wanted something from each of the founders, and that each one would be put in a place that had some special meaning for him. He thought there would be seven soul fragments, so there would be six Horcruxes."

"The diary and the ring were two, but not from the founders. So the remaining four would be. I take it from the S engraved on the locket that it was Slytherin's."

"I believe so."

"Why was it in that cave?"

"Something happened in that cave when he – You-Know-Who – was young. It was important to him."

"Makes sense. What else do you know about him?"

"He grew up in an orphanage, went to Hogwarts, worked at Borgin and Burkes…"

"The Dark Lord worked here? Here? Around Diagon and Knockturn Alleys?"

"Yes. I got the impression it was for several years."

"And Ollivander has always been a strange bird…"

"What do you mean?"

"Professor Dumbledore destroyed the ring Horcrux in the first half of last July. About the same time, the Dark Lord discovered that the diary Horcrux had been destroyed some years ago. That was why he wanted to punish Draco. I think he checked on the other Horcruxes and possibly removed them from their places. Not the locket, of course, because that was already gone. He just turned that one into a trap…"

Hermione's eyes were shining. "You mean he had one right here in Diagon Alley all that time. Because he worked here and made so many of his plans here?"

"Dumbledore had me looking for artifacts and symbolism. One of the things I checked was the tarot – wands, cups, swords, and coins. Whose was the cup?"

"Helga Hufflepuff. And Gryffindor had a sword. And that locket is like a coin… So there's a wand at Ollivanders that used to belong to Ravenclaw!"

"Well, maybe it's not there any longer, but it may have been. Especially if Ollivander was looking out for it. Ollivander vanished right after Dumbledore destroyed the ring. No fight, no violence – just vanished. At the same time Fortescue disappeared, but in his case there was a fight." Russ stood as if about to start pacing. "Now if Ollivander was already doing something for the Dark Lord…"

"…guarding his Horcrux…"

"…then there was no reason for him to resist. Fortescue, on the other hand…"

"Why him?"

"The only thing I could think of was his knowledge of medieval history and therefore of the founders."

Now Hermione was caught up in the idea. "So the ring is destroyed, the diary is destroyed, and the locket vanished long ago. So You-Know-Who wanted to be sure that the other three things were safe. He got Ollivander and the wand… and anyone who might help identify the wand… and took them… where?"

That was as far as Russ could go at that moment, so he just shrugged.

Hermione was on her feet. "George! Fred! Get in here quick!"

The twins came into the back room at her call. "What's up now?"

"We have to get Russ into Ollivander's wand shop. I can't explain now, it isn't my story, but there may be clues in there to what Harry's been looking for. Can you get us into that shop?"

Russ stared at Hermione for a moment. "Us?" he said.

"Of course us," said Hermione. "You don't think I'd let you leave me behind, do you? And besides, if you don't take me, I may warn Mr. Moody that you went off to find a wand."

"Extortionist," muttered Russ.

"So," said George, "you're going to fight back, eh? Give old Moody a run for his money?"

"I'm not planning to fight Moody. I just want the ability to take care of myself."

"Right," said Fred. "We understand. Feel kind of naked without the wand. I just thought a wizard like you could, you know, do wandless stuff."

"First, I don't know what you mean by 'a wizard like' me. The only wizard I've ever known who could consistently do focused wandless magic was… Dumbledore. And that may have been due to natural talent, but it may also have been due to having survived to be over a hundred and fifty. Now if I ever reach a hundred and fifty, I may also know a lot of things I don't know now, but until then…"

"What's second?" Fred asked.

"I can do some wandless magic. I'm not going to tell you what because until I get a wand I want to keep you guessing, but some. There are certain things requiring great focus that I would never try wandless – do it with apparating and you splinch to seven parts of Britain at once…"

"I could listen to him for hours," George sighed.

"I couldn't," said Fred. "Do you want to go to Ollivanders or not, Prof… er, Russ."

"Let's go to Ollivanders."

While the twins got ready, the Snape who was inside of Russ started thinking about the idea that had struck him a moment before – about the wandless Dumbledore who'd promised to take care of the rest if he only got thrown off the Astronomy Tower – a thought that took him to Hagrid and the body that nobody viewed. Snape suddenly wanted a chance to examine that marble tomb…

"Ready, Russ?" called George and, leaving Fred to watch the shop, George, Hermione, and Russ slipped out to Ollivanders.

"Now we don't want any Alohomoras," warned George. "That kind of thing registers a mile away. I'll take care of the lock."

He squeezed to the back of the building, leaving Hermione and Russ seemingly chatting on the street. After a moment they heard a soft 'psst' letting Hermione know the door was open. Russ waited alone until he was sure no one was noticing, then he too darted for the back and the open door.

"Come on!" hissed George, grabbing and pulling Russ, who was staring in wonder at the piles and drawers and shelves of narrow wand boxes. "Gawk later. It's not like you haven't seen it before."

They threaded their way to the front of the building, noting the layer of dust that covered everything. Once again Russ fell behind to examine boxes.

"Are you looking for one like your old wand?" Hermione asked.

"Good heavens, no," answered Russ. "That was my grandfather's wand, and he was no potions master nor healer. I want to see if I can find one like my grandmother's – juniper with a mistletoe root heart."

They all started looking, but it took a great while since the boxes didn't seem to be arranged in any order. George finally located some of juniper wood, and Russ tried a couple with mistletoe root hearts. One in particular worked quite well in raining small stars from the ceiling.

"Is your grandmother a potions maker, too?"

"Herbologist, potions maker, healer. She was quite a lady."

"Was?"

"She was killed by a mob of muggles when I was sixteen."

"Oh," said Hermione, feeling very awkward.

"That's okay. I found out later they were under an Imperius Curse on the Dark Lord's orders. By then it was too late – I was already a Death Eater." After a moment's silence, he changed the subject. "You've both been here before. Is there anything that used to be here that isn't?"

"Lots of wands," said George.

Hermione was looking around thoughtfully. "There used to be one in the window," she said after a while. "You can still see the impression of the purple cushion it was on."

"Cricks, you're right!" exclaimed George. "One wand, lying right there. It was there for years and years… I saw it when Charlie got his first wand."

"The Purloined Letter," said Russ enigmatically.

"Now what's that mean? I hate when you get all teacherly on us."

"Oh, that. I read lots of mystery books. One of the first great mystery writers was an American named Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote a story where the French police are looking for a stolen letter that's being used to blackmail someone. They visit the suspect's house, but don't find the letter, which is right in front of them on the mantle along with other papers. They were looking for something they were sure was hidden, and didn't find it because it wasn't."

Nodding, Hermione took up the thread. "A display wand would never be accidentally sold. I even thought it wasn't a real wand, just a mockup for show. Of course, it still may turn out to be that, but how interesting that it isn't here now."

"I think we can go back to the joke shop," Russ said. "I have what I came for, both in terms of wands and in terms of information."

Once back at the joke shop, Russ began putting his new wand through its paces. This included tidying the back room, rearranging the insulting greeting cards in alphabetical order by last word, getting the till to ring up sale prices on items not on sale (Fred and George made him stop as soon as they noticed), and transfiguring a writing desk into a raven and back again. When he made the gargoyles over the door of the shop across the way tell customers to go to the Weasleys' shop (something the twins had been trying to accomplish for months), George sent Fred in to take notes.

"Why'd you ever decide to teach Potions?" Fred asked in disbelief.

"Long story," Russ replied.

The four ate supper at an Indian restaurant in Soho, where Russ introduced the twins to tandoori chicken, naan bread, and chutney. Then they apparated back to Moody's house.

Moody was not happy. Snape had been away for several hours longer than originally agreed on, and Moody was certain he'd gotten into trouble. After sending Hermione and the twins back to the Burrow, Snape and Moody got into a ferocious argument in the sitting room, in the course of which Moody used his enchanted eye for a bit of legilimency.

"You've been checking out wands! You got a wand! You wretched little sneak thief!"

"So what? I'm not a lump of suet you can dangle like bait in front of the Dark Lord! You may not care if I get sliced up like shish kebab, but I do!"

Moody pulled out his wand, prompting Snape to do the same.

"I won't have you cutting out on me!" Moody roared, projecting an attack to the wand arm, then striking the injured left one instead. Snape crumpled.

Moody deftly retrieved Snape's new wand. "It hurts me that you don't do as I say, and after how I've taken care of you. Come on, get up now." Snape didn't move. "Get up, I said."

"Why don't you just kill me?"

"Nobody's going to kill you! Get up. Those best actor award things were four months ago at least."

"I don't want to live."

"Yes, you do. You're the most survival oriented cove I've ever met."

"You hate me. You want me dead."

"Well, there you might have a point. You haven't exactly been carrying your share of the weight here."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you haven't. Who found out about the cup, eh?"

Snape sat up, "I'll have you know, you big lump, that the fifth Horcrux is probably Rowena Ravenclaw's wand. So there."

xxxxxxxxxx

_Tuesday, August 5, 1997_

"So, if Dumbledore thought that Voldemort hid things in places that had meaning for him, how many places do we know of?" Moody and Snape were sitting in the kitchen the next morning, Moody holding sheets of parchment steady while Snape made lists, diagrams, and charts with his good hand.

Snape knit his brow in thought. "The diary wasn't hidden in a place with meaning. It was given to Lucius Malfoy and probably hidden under the floor – that secret little hiding place that Arthur Weasley learned about after Malfoy gave the diary to his daughter. But the house Voldemort's grandfather and mother lived in – that's where Dumbledore found the ring – that was one. As a child he lived in an orphanage, though Granger had the idea that Dumbledore'd ruled that one out. Instead he put the locket in the cave – which was also connected somehow with his childhood. After that he was at Hogwarts, so we need to check there, and at Borgin and Burkes, but we think we found that place. The sixth – who knows?"

Snape studied the crude drawing Moody had made of the cup he saw in Potter's mind. "I wish I knew how large that was," he said. "If it was relatively large, it could almost be a trophy – like a Quidditch cup. That would take care of Hogwarts. But if it's small like a drinking goblet, it wouldn't go in a trophy case."

"Could he cast an enlarging spell on it?"

"I suppose, but one that would last all these years? On the other hand, a cup that was more like a drinking goblet would fit into a cabinet with other goblets. The problem with that is that over the years it might be used to actually drink from, and I don't think the Dark Lord would like that."

"What about the last artifact?"

"Gryffindor's sword would fit the pattern perfectly, but that's in the Headmaster's office and Dumbledore of all people would know if it had been tampered with. The only other thing that we have that belonged to Gryffindor would be the Sorting Hat. Same problem with it – Dumbledore would know. Except…"

"Spill."

"What if he never made the last one? There's a whole town that was in Gryffindor's demesne – Godric's Hollow. That's where he went the night he… well, you know. He might have been intending to make the Gryffindor Horcrux that night, if he knew there was a Gryffindor artifact still in Godric's Hollow."

"So we might be looking for five?"

"Or he may have made the sixth since he came back. He has killed a couple of people since then. Amelia Bones for example."

Moody contemplated the diagrams. "I think we should check out Hogwarts."

"You forget. I don't teach there anymore. At least I don't think I do. I still haven't gotten my dismissal letter and my severance pay."

The cuff that landed on Snape's ear was not hard, but it did cause him to yelp. "One of these days I'm going to shake you," said Moody. "Still, we could get you in rather easily. Remember, my nephew has to continue his education."

"Oh, that's a wonderful idea. I go to Hogwarts as a student where how many others know who I really am? – Potter, Granger, Longbottom, Lovegood, two Weasleys… You are brilliant, you know, Moody."

"Yes, but they're not there now. We could go up to see McGonagall about admission, and you could take a tour of the school. Maybe have a chance to check out the trophy room."

Snape regarded Moody for a moment. "I hate to say it, but that's not bad. I wouldn't mind having a chance to prowl around. Maybe I could get some of my things out of my rooms, too. I had to leave rather suddenly last time. Didn't have time to pack."

"Done then," said Moody. "I'll send a message to McGonagall asking if I can bring Russ up to be interviewed sometime this week. I'm rather looking forward to the trip."

xxxxxxxxxx

_Thursday, August 7, 1997_

Alastor Moody and his great-nephew Russell apparated together to the outskirts of Hogsmeade about nine-thirty on Thursday morning and walked through the town to the gates of Hogwarts. There Filch was waiting to admit them, the shielding of the gates having been eased to accommodate the arrival of materials for the school year, and Filch being more or less permanently stationed at the entrance for the next couple of weeks.

It was odd for Russ to be walking up the hill next to Moody, trying to pretend as if he'd never seen the school before. He stopped halfway up to look towards the forest and Hagrid's hut. "Is he still gone?"

"So far as I know. I may ask McGonagall if it's intended to be temporary and Hagrid's just off on holiday with his brother, or if he's gone for good."

"She may not know. What chance have we got to search the place?"

"It'd be hard getting down there without being seen, boyo."

"Not for me. I have my ways."

Moody was silent as they continued up to the castle doors and entered. Most of the teachers were still sitting around one of the lower tables finishing breakfast, so Moody walked in with Russ, told him to stand by the door, and went over to McGonagall. She seemed pleased to see him, and rose immediately to come over and greet Russ.

"It is good to see you again, Russell. I must confess I was rather hoping you could stay with us this next year. Our students don't get much opportunity to meet someone from another country and another academic background. It is a chance for us all to learn something."

"Yes, ma'am," Russ replied morosely. He was still supposed to be trying to get back to California so that the fact he did not actually arrive on the train at the beginning of September could be easily explained.

"Well, come on up to my office then."

As they climbed, Russ whispered to Moody, just loudly enough for McGonagall to hear, "Aren't there any elevators?"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to walking."

Going into the Headmistress's office was painful. Nothing had changed, and it felt as if Dumbledore might step forward any moment. His portrait slumbered peacefully among the other headmasters.

"Has it said anything yet?" Moody asked.

"No. In a way, I'm glad. I can pretend the portrait is a ruse, and he's planning something. When it starts talking, I'll know for sure he's gone." She sat at the desk and motioned Russ to a chair. "How old are you, young man?"

"I'll be sixteen in January, ma'am."

"Then technically you'd be a fifth year student preparing for your OWL levels. But your uncle tells me you've had no magical training to speak of. Is that true?"

"Yes, ma'am. I've gone to regular schools."

"Do you know anything about spells, charms, potions, the wizarding world… Do you even have a wand?"

Russ glanced over at Moody. "No, ma'am. Am I supposed to have a wand to go to school here?"

"Well certainly. And a cauldron, and an owl if you want one, and a large number of books."

"Maybe it won't be so bad after all."

Moody was glaring. "You'd have to start him in the lowest classes, then? His father was an excellent spell caster. He may have inherited some of that and it's just waiting to come out."

"He'd have to be sorted, of course…"

Russ met Moody's eyes and quickly shook his head, tapping the jacket pocket where he carried some capsules. Polyjuice potion was fine for fooling wizards, but he didn't think it would fool the Sorting Hat. There might be some problem with sorting a student who'd been sorted twenty-six years earlier.

"Would that be necessary? Putting him up there with all the first years, I mean. It isn't like he'll be here more than a year… as soon as the divorce is final…"

"But where would we put him? I don't know if a student has ever been placed in a house without being sorted." She stood, motioning them to stay seated, and walked deliberately over to where the Hat perched above their heads. "Perhaps we could ask the Sorting Hat to sort him now."

_No!_ Russ was mouthing to Moody behind her back, but Moody paid no attention. "That sounds like an excellent solution to the problem, Minerva. He'd be properly sorted, without the ordeal of being placed in front of the whole school."

"Come over here then, Russell," said McGonagall as she reached for the Hat.

"What are you doing?" whispered Russ.

"If it won't sort you, we'll let Minerva in on the secret."

Russ sat nervously on a chair next to McGonagall as she placed the hat on his head. There was a long, long pause during which Russ kept his eyes closed, and then the Hat cried out, "Ravenclaw!"

Russ's name was put down for Ravenclaw, he was given the admission letter and a list of things to buy, and then Moody told McGonagall that he would show the boy around. Once they were out of the Headmistress's office, Moody pulled Russ into a classroom.

"Ravenclaw? How did you get into Ravenclaw?"

"The Hat said it knew me."

"Every word. I want every word. This is going to blow people away."

"First it said, 'Back again? Didn't like where you got put the first time, eh? You might try helping a bit, you know.' So I thought maybe it wasn't happy about the first time either."

"What happened the first time?"

"It couldn't read me. It even asked if anyone was there. You see, it was a good year and a half before Dumbledore and Hagrid managed to get me to open up. The occlumency thing."

"I didn't know that was congenital. No wonder you're so good at it. What else did the Hat say?"

"It showed me a scene and asked what I would do.

"I was next to a lake, it was beginning to rain, and I heard someone calling. I looked around and saw a dry well, about six feet deep. A man was chained to the side of the well so that he couldn't get his head up to the rim. He wanted me to help him escape because he knew the rain would last all night, and before the night was over the well would fill up with rain water and he would drown. He said there was a key to unlock the chains, but it was on a tiny boat floating just out of reach in the lake, and the lake was the home of hundreds of flesh-eating fish. He promised to pay me, since he had a fortune in a house on the other side of the lake. I looked around, but the only thing there was an umbrella. I told the Hat what I would do, and it put me in Ravenclaw."

"I'd 've jumped in, fought off the fish, and grabbed the key."

"I'll bet you were in Gryffindor."

"You got me pegged."

Russ and Moody left the classroom and headed downstairs to the trophy room. There they began to look through the cases. It was then that Russ realized that many of the trophies weren't large cups. They were shaped like tall pedestals with small cups on the top. A twelve-inch pedestal might be surmounted by a four-inch-tall cup. And there were hundreds and hundreds of trophies. None seemed to be missing.

"It would take us days to look through all of this," said Moody. "You have to come to Hogwarts."

"I can't. Potter's friends would tell everyone who I was before I even got on the train. Maybe we could get them to look for the cup. There's more of them, so it would take less time."

"I'd trust you more to recognize a Horcrux when you saw one."

Russ just shook his head.

"Look," said Moody. "We'll get all the books. Just in case. If you do have to go on that train, I'll give you the wand. How about it?"

"If I want a shot at getting my wand back, I have to go shopping with you for books in Diagon Alley?"

"That's about it."

"Deal," Russ sighed.

Before they left Hogwarts, Russ and Moody went down to the Potions office and the adjoining room. Russ was pleased to see that no one had been able to get through the locking spells. In fact, it didn't look as if anyone had tried.

Very little inside was personal. Russ took the mystery books, a couple of papers, and some clothes, but everything else was either not needed or could be considered school property. The locks he shut everything with were easier to open than the original ones.

The two walked back down to Hogsmeade and apparated to Moody's house. It was only a little past noon, so they decided to go that afternoon to Diagon Alley for the books.

Russ changed back into Snape while he and Moody ate lunch. As he mechanically swallowed the meat that Moody cut up for him, Snape reviewed the list of clothes, books, and equipment that he was required to bring. "This is terrible," he moaned.

"Looks mighty normal to me. What's wrong?"

"Do you realize that I've already sat through one entire first year with Flitwick, McGonagall, Slughorn, Sinistra, and Binns, and now I have to do it again?"

"Are you really that much younger than they are?"

"I'm not younger than they are, they're older than I am. I am precisely the right age."

"Ah, but for what? Let's see that list. I would suggest we get your robes a tad too big. That way, if you start to change they'll still conceal you. And you've got the wand – the new one."

"The old one is more powerful."

"The old one would be recognized."

"This is still academic. If Potter and his friends don't go along with it, it can't happen."

"We'll just have to talk to them, won't we?"

Diagon Alley was full of students. Robes and other clothing were easy since Moody just bought from the shelf without bothering to have Russ fitted. After Madame Malkin's they went to the Apothecary and to Flourish and Blotts. Moody was trying to convince Russ that he needed an owl when a voice behind them said, "What are you doing here?" They turned around, and Russ looked up into the eyes of a very angry Ronald Weasley.

"Now Ron," said Moody quickly, "before you do anything hasty, we need to talk."

"I'm not talking to him. I'm about to start yelling and telling everyone around that he's here."

"No you're not," Russ said. "Harry wouldn't like that at all, would he?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I thought he wanted me for himself. If anyone else gets me first, he's going to be very disappointed. But if that's what you want…"

"Well, not…" Ron was now uncertain.

"Let's go over to Wizard Wheezes where we can talk in private," Moody suggested. "That way you won't accidentally say something in public that you'll regret later."

Fred and George greeted them warmly and gave them full use of the back room for the afternoon. Then Fred went out looking for the others, since Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna were all in Diagon Alley that day. With them came Mrs. Weasley, and with her Lupin and Tonks who were helping guard her children.

_Great,_ thought Russ, _almost everybody who knows who I am is in the same room_. "Where's Potter?" he asked.

"Harry's decided not to return to Hogwarts," said Molly Weasley. "He wants to work on the task he says Dumbledore left for him."

"Then Russ can help," Hermione told them. "We've already figured out another possible… thing."

Ron exploded. "What d' you mean, we!" as Ginny, too, moved away from Hermione in anger. "You've been talking to this… this… murderer behind my back? Behind Harry's back?"

"He may not be a murderer, Ron. They showed me a pensieve memory. Dumbledore gave him orders…"

"You'll believe him over Harry? Harry was there! Harry saw what happened!"

"Now, now, dear," Molly Weasley said gently, "that may not be exactly true. We saw the memory, too, and Dumbledore was telling Professor Snape to do it."

"You saw…! You saw…!" Ron stared at his mother in disbelief.

"Yes, I did. So did your father. And Remus. And Tonks. And quite a few other people in the Order. We got to see Professor Snape right after he woke up, the beginning of last month. We've known since then."

Ron glared at Lupin and Tonks, both of whom stared at the floor in embarrassment.

"You might have told us," said Ginny coldly.

"How, with Harry behaving the way he's been?" responded Molly. "He won't cooperate with anyone or tell anyone where he and Dumbledore were… not just the Ministry people, which I could understand, but Professor McGonagall… no one. We're not quite sure we trust him. He seems a bit… unstable."

"Well, he watched Dumbledore be murdered, so I guess that may have something to do with it!" Ron yelled.

"I know, dear. And that's one of the reasons we haven't been pressuring him. He hasn't had enough time yet to work it out. But other people have been through a lot, too, and they haven't been given time to work it out yet either. Harry isn't the only person with problems, you know."

"I suppose you mean him." Ron nodded in Russ's direction.

"He was badly hurt, Ron, and nearly died," Hermione said quietly.

"He looks fine to me."

"That's because he's taking Polyjuice potion. If you saw him…"

"I did see him. Upstairs in my room. He looked fine there, too."

"You haven't seen his arm."

"And I don't want to! Why're you taking his side? Don't you care about Harry?"

"I don't think she does," Ginny broke in. "I think she's pleased as anything that this is proving she was right and Harry was wrong."

"That's not true!" Hermione screamed at Ginny, at which point Lupin intervened.

"We need to stop squabbling," he said. "We need to forget ourselves and try to plan what's best to get rid of You-Know-Who, even if it goes against our other wishes. Even if it goes against Harry's wishes." He turned to Russ and Moody, both of whom had remained silent, waiting for the tension to work itself out. "Does all this," – he indicated the parcels of clothes, books, and equipment – "mean you're planning to attend Hogwarts this fall?"

Russ looked to Moody to answer the question.

"There's a couple of things at Hogwarts that need checking. I think Russ would be in a good position to do that. We went to see McGonagall today, and he's been admitted."

"Does she know who he is?"

"No. Not yet."

"Why not?" Lupin demanded.

"How could any of the teachers behave normally in front of him in classes if they knew who he was?"

Russ coughed slightly, drawing Moody's attention. "What?" Moody asked sharply.

"Will she be teaching classes? She's headmistress now."

"I didn't see any new teachers in the Hall this morning."

"Maybe she needs two new teachers, then."

"Two?"

"Dark Arts and Transfiguration. If you could get two members of the Order in as teachers, they could help guard the school and the students, and they could help keep an eye on me."

"I thought you didn't want to do this."

"Anything's better than that cell you've got me locked in."

"It's still no good," Ron smirked. "Even if you watch him all day, he still gets to go off to Slytherin house and plot with all his Death Eater friends' kids in the evening."

Moody grinned. "That's been taken care of. McGonagall sorted him this morning. My 'nephew' is going into Ravenclaw."

"Ravenclaw!" several voices chorused, and Hermione added, "You mean the Sorting Hat can be fooled by Polyjuice potion?"

"No," said Russ. "It can't. It recognized me at once and asked if I wasn't satisfied with its first choice. I don't think it cared about the passage of years. It checked me and put me into Ravenclaw."

"I think that's nice." Luna spoke for the first time. "Now I get to keep an eye on him."

"Are Ginny and me the only sane ones in this place?" Ron shouted at the rest of them. "You can't let him go to Hogwarts!"

"What about you, Neville?" Luna asked. "You haven't said anything yet."

Longbottom turned red. "I was just wondering – if Professor Snape is in a Ravenclaw dormitory – how is he going to keep taking Polyjuice potion while he's asleep?"

Moody threw back his head and roared with laughter. "The lad's got you there, boyo! I'd like to hear the answer to that one myself! I'm inviting you all back to my house right now so this one can turn back into himself and we can all look at arms and pensieves and nobody's hiding anything."

Fred and George closed the joke shop and joined them in the hope they might get to see Snape's arm again. "I should charge you money," Russ told them, which turned out to be the wrong thing to say since it only gave them ideas.

On arrival at Moody's home, Russ went upstairs to change, then came down dressed in Snape's clothes. Moody was having some trouble getting everyone into his sitting room since he'd never entertained this many people in his own home at one time before. Everything in the house that could possibly be used as a chair was brought in.

Then Tonks explained how she'd gone to the top of the Astronomy Tower after the fighting ended, and how she'd found Yaxley there. Yaxley had convinced her to send a message to Moody, and Moody was told of the safe house in Oxford where Snape and Draco were headed.

Moody took up the tale. "I knew he was in trouble when I got his patronus reply. It was tiny and weak, and had hardly any shape at all. So I was sort of prepared for what I found. Luckily, Voldemort decided not to kill him too quickly. He was burning with fever, his skin was covered with boils and blisters that were breaking open and oozing pus, and he'd slashed at the dark mark so there was blood everywhere. I finished the job on the mark, then I got him and Draco away."

"Where's Draco?" Ron asked.

"One story at a time. There wasn't any place I could take Snape to be treated. I still didn't have the whole story, but the fact he ran from Hogwarts didn't sound good. So I took him to a safe house I knew of, got hold of Lupin and Tonks, who filled me in on what happened, and together we nursed him for three weeks. He was in a coma part of the time and delirious part of the time, and if it wasn't for the potions Pomfrey provided, we'd have lost him."

"Madam Pomfrey knew?" Ginny cried. "Did everybody know about this but us?"

"Madam Pomfrey's relationship with Professor Snape is covered by doctor-patient confidentiality. I believe this was not the first time she'd treated him. In any case, he woke up at the end of June. We brought several members of the Order to interrogate him, and that's when your parents saw the pensieve memories. Now we wait."

"What for?" asked Ron.

"For him to change back so that you can see the job I did on his arm."

"Do we have to?" asked Hermione.

"You don't. You've seen it."

"I rather agree with Miss Granger. I prefer not doing this," Snape interjected.

"They have to see what this has already cost. They have to understand that there's more going on here than Dumbledore revealed to Harry."

It didn't take long. Most of the hour had already passed. A few minutes later, Snape was changing back to his own face and form, and the arm dropped to his side. Those who'd already seen the scars, except for the twins of course, left the room. When it was over, the room was quiet as Snape adjusted the sling. Ron and Ginny looked sick, Neville looked like he wanted to cry, but Luna's face mirrored those of the twins.

Next came the two pensieve memories, and they coincided so closely with what Harry had already told them that it was impossible for Ron or Ginny to dispute their accuracy. George then described their foray into Ollivanders, and Moody spoke of the cup in Harry's mind and the cups in the trophy room.

"Okay," said Ron. "But why can't we search for the cup in the trophy room? Why can't Harry? Why does he have to be there?"

"Would you be able to tell if it was protected by a dark spell? You saw what happened to Dumbledore's arm. Could you handle it without getting yourself or someone else killed?" Moody's tone said that he thought not.

"What about Harry?"

"What's Harry planning to do?"

Ron's face suddenly closed. "That's none of your business," he said, looking Moody straight in the real eye.

"Hunting down Horcruxes," Moody said after a moment. "The locket, the cup, and something to do with Slytherin because there's a snake."

Color drained from Ron's face, and then he flushed bright red. "You don't play fair."

"You think Voldemort plays fair? The whole lot of you need to learn to hide what you're thinking. If the rest are as bad as you and Potter, Voldemort has it easy. He picks up one of you, you tell him where Potter is, and Potter shows him his whole plan."

"Harry tried to learn that, but it didn't work," Hermione said sadly, then looked at Snape and blushed herself.

"Potter didn't want to learn occlumency," Snape said. "He was too curious. He wanted to learn what the Dark… what Voldemort was showing him. He couldn't understand that he was exposing others to great danger."

"Why didn't you tell him?"

"I did, Mrs. Weasley. Repeatedly. Potter is congenitally incapable of believing a word I say. If I told him London was the capital of England, he'd promptly stop believing it."

"You still haven't explained why you have to go to Hogwarts."

"I shall be very honest with you, Mrs. Weasley. I do not want to go there. Mr. Moody, on the other hand, considers it a good idea. The only attractive part for me is that it gets me permanently out of Mr. Moody's cellar. That, and Professor McGonagall would require me to bring a wand."

"Moody grabbed the one you nicked from Ollivanders? Rotten luck," George said.

"I thought so, too. But now that Mr. Longbottom has brought up the question of continuous ingestion of the Polyjuice, the whole subject seems to have entered the realm of the hypothetical."

Neville looked miserable and seemed to shrink into himself.

"Pity, too, because I would have been picking more fluxweed in about eleven days for another batch and it all seems to be a waste of time." Snape sighed.

"It's in flower, too," said Neville softly. "The best time. Though they say our cultivated fluxweed can't hold a candle to…" He stopped, embarrassed, for Snape was staring at him.

"What did you take on your Herbology OWL, Longbottom?"

"Out st…anding, sir."

"What can't it hold a candle to?"

"Wild fluxweed, sir. It's native to North America. They say the most potent varieties grow in South Dakota. Near the Missouri River."

"Do you know anything else about it?"

"Not much. Before America was discovered, we usually used hyssop in a lot of the potions where we use fluxweed now. I always thought it was strange it shared a name with a sea anemone. Isanthus brachiatus and Isanthus capensis."

"Do you think there might be a nomenclatorial symbiosis?"

"It's likely. Sir, did you know the sea anemones produce a neurotoxin?"

"Really? Boomslang venom is a hemotoxin. We use the skin rather than the venom, but there may be residual effects. I've often wondered if it was meant to weaken the hemetin secreted by the Rhyncobdellida."

"I wouldn't know about the boomslang, sir. I know the hemostatic properties of the Polygonum arenastrum already account for any hemophilic side-effects of the leeches."

"Longbottom, would you come into the cellar and look at the modifications I've made to the formula?"

"If you think I could be of assistance, sir."

The general gathering watched the two of them leave in stunned silence. Finally Moody spoke. "Now there goes a match made in heaven. Does anyone have the slightest idea what the two of them were talking about?"

"Polyjuice Potion," said Hermione, and ran down the cellar stairs after Snape and Neville.

"I don't know about the rest of you," said Molly Weasley, "but I'd love another cup of tea."

The evening was lengthening, and several of the younger people (most of them surnamed Weasley) were clearly worried about the availability of food. There was, however, a sense that something portentous was occurring in the cellar, and nobody wanted to miss it. After forty-five minutes, Snape, Neville, and Hermione returned, all looking quite pleased with themselves.

"Moody," said Snape, "we have another task for your contacts in the States. In the early evening of the eighteenth of this month, the full moon, they have to collect fluxweed along the Missouri River in South Dakota. We also need someone to gather a few specimens of the sea anemones Isanthus capensis or Isanthus homolophilus. And we're running out of boomslang skin and bicorn horn, so get that, too."

"You couldn't think of something easy."

"Do you want us to experiment with the Polyjuice potion or not?"

With the defection of Luna and Neville, the score now stood at nine to two, with only Ron and Ginny holding out against Snape's continued presence in their fight against Voldemort.

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	4. Chapter 4 – The Student

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: The Student**

In the end, to the great surprise of everyone, it seemed it was Harry Potter himself who pushed Ron and Ginny into the Moody camp. Potter had gone away for most of the month of August, but returned for the last week to be with his friends before they went back to Hogwarts. During that time, the subject inevitably came up of confiding in the other members of the order and broadening his base of support.

Potter, by all accounts, went ballistic, practically accusing his best and only friends of treason. He'd long since broken off with Ginny with the reasoning that he was bringing her into danger (a reasoning with which Snape, incidentally, heartily agreed), and now he ceased sharing any information with either Ron or Hermione.

Ron tried to persuade Potter to relent to the extent of talking to Lupin or to McGonagall, actions which Ron now saw as balanced and rational, only to be met with instinctive and unexplained refusal. It reached the point where the only way to be near Potter was for Ron and Hermione to forego any discussion of Voldemort or Horcruxes at all.

On Saturday, August 30, Ron informed Moody that he had withdrawn his opposition to Snape's attending Hogwarts, at least temporarily, in order to pursue their investigations into the whereabouts of the Hufflepuff cup and any other artifacts. Though still not wholly reconciled, Ron was willing to agree that he wouldn't blow Snape's cover without informing Moody in advance. Ginny also concurred.

Meanwhile, Snape and Neville had achieved an astounding breakthrough with the Polyjuice potion. Using some of the information from Snape's work for Voldemort, experimenting with different combinations of ingredients, and then boiling it down into a taffy-like consistency before inserting it into the capsules, they had developed a version of Polyjuice that lasted an astounding twelve hours. This meant that Snape would only have to take the pills twice a day on a rigidly regular schedule.

On Monday, September 1, 1997, Snape took one of the Polyjuice capsules and morphed into Russell Moody. Together he and Alastor Moody apparated to King's Cross Station and went through the wall to Platform 9 3/4. Russell wasn't taking much. In addition to his school clothes, books, and standard equipment, he had some muggle clothing, a few murder mystery novels, and a small, mottled reddish brown western screech owl, _Megascops kennicottii_ that stood less than ten inches tall and hailed from California. He had named her Athena.

The two stood together on the platform, attracting some attention due to Moody's unusual appearance, with his wooden leg, misshapen face, and enchanted blue eye. Moody was acting for all the world like a nervous parent, continually asking if Russ had remembered to pack everything and giving him advice for the coming school year.

Finally it was time to board, and the two said a rather stiff goodbye. The last thing Moody did before seeing Russ onto the train was hand him the wand – juniper, ten inches, very flexible, with a mistletoe root heart. Russell tucked it into his inner jacket pocket and promised he would be good.

As the train eased out of the station, Russ made his way through the cars looking for a place to sit. He didn't have to look far. "There you are," Hermione said behind him as he walked through the third car. "We were wondering if you'd gotten lost or something. We're in here."

They were six - Russ, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna - and they occupied the whole of one compartment. "I have a commission from Fred and George," Ron announced. "I'm supposed to check that Moody really gave you that wand."

Russ pulled it out and let the others examine it.

"Now do something," Ron commanded.

"I'm not supposed to know how to use it yet."

"Oh, come on! We all know you can, and nobody else is watching. So, show us something from the old days."

The spell was nonverbal because he didn't want them to be able to duplicate it. Slowly the luggage rack above Ron, Ginny, and Hermione began to reform itself into something like a screen, and as they watched, pictures began to move across it, black and white pictures with an old, grainy texture to them. For the next couple of hours, the five watched ancient silent comedy clips of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, and Harold Lloyd. None of them but Hermione had ever seen anything like it before, and even for her most of it was new. They watched and laughed uproariously, while Russell looked out the train window and wondered what life was going to be like as a student at Hogwarts.

The nearer they got to Hogwarts, the more apprehensive Russ became. It was one thing to be sitting in the train compartment with a small group of students that he at least had some influence over, students whom he could awe or intimidate with reminders of parents and tasks, but the great horde of the rest of the school was another matter. Russ felt like he was eleven again.

Of course, he had forgotten one of the most important things. Something that he was forcibly reminded of as soon as the train pulled into Hogsmeade and the compartments began disgorging students onto the platform. _I know them all. That's Finch-Fletchley of Hufflepuff with Smith beside him. Decent potions students both, but nothing to brag about. Goodness, Crabbe and Goyle look big from a student's point of view! But lost without Malfoy…_ In fact, Russ knew the name of almost every student there, first years excluded, of course, and something of the intelligence and potential of each. _I know a lot more of them than Granger, Weasley & Co. do. I know students from all houses and all years._ He was not a new student in an unknown school. It was a school he knew very well.

The ride up the hill in the thestral carriages was also familiar from his student days. Luna took him in charge immediately, linked an arm in his, and led him to one toward the end of the line. "You see them, don't you?" she whispered.

"Naturally," he replied.

"Who did you see die?"

"More than one. Tell you about it later." The odd thing was that Luna took the whole business of death and injury so matter-of-factly that it was hard to be embarrassed by it.

Other Ravenclaws were beginning to notice him, and Russ wondered if they thought he was related to Luna. And if so, was that a good thing or a bad thing? The carriage they entered had mostly sixth years in it, but Luna greeted them as if she hardly knew them, and presented him with a curt 'this is Russ' that stopped most conversation. Luckily he was at the side and could watch out the window as they approached the castle.

The Great Hall was another moment when the old reality and the new reality clashed. He'd sat at both the Slytherin table and the High Table, but to be at the Ravenclaw table in the center of the Hall, with students on all sides, was a somewhat more vulnerable position, noisier and more exposed to jostling.

Flitwick came scurrying over almost as soon as Russ and Luna settled at the Ravenclaw table.

"You're Alastor Moody's nephew? Welcome, welcome. I am Professor Flitwick, the head of Ravenclaw house. Good to have you with us. There's a bit of a tangle with your dormitory assignment, but I think we've arranged it satisfactorily for the time being. The prefects have been notified and they'll get you settled in. So fascinating to have someone from the States in our house. I did see you before at Bill Weasley's wedding. We are all pleased you're able to come to Hogwarts this year." Then he was gone, to take his place at the High Table.

The attention of Flitwick altered the attitude of the other students considerably. This was not a tag-along relation of Luna Lovegood's, but a relative of Alastor Moody, and most of the students had a good idea who he was. There was also the tantalizing tidbit of information that Russ was from the United States. Other students at the table began to glance in Russ's direction, but as the Sorting Ceremony was about to begin, they didn't talk.

Russ was immensely glad that he'd been sorted earlier. The first years looked so young, so small, and being perched up there on the stool in front of the whole school was an ordeal that had nearly devastated him the first time, not realizing that what the Hat said to him could not be heard by anyone else. Now, bigger and older than the first years, being sorted with them would have been merely embarrassing, but it was nonetheless better not to have to do it.

And then there was the beginning of term speech, which McGonagall delivered before the feast started rather than waiting until after. Suddenly Russ, along with everyone in the Hall, was keenly aware of the absence of Professor Dumbledore. When McGonagall began talking about classes, Russ's ears pricked up.

"You will all notice tomorrow that the hour for your Defense against the Dark Arts classes is for the moment empty. We are engaging a teacher for that position, but it will be approximately a week before it is filled. You will be given assignments in the subject which must be completed before your Professor arrives at Hogwarts. Likewise, I myself will take on the duty of instruction in the Transfiguration classes for the same period. The new Transfiguration teacher should also arrive in about a week."

_I wonder who she got? Someone in the Order who knows who I am? Or complete unknowns?_

Then the feast began, and the hungry students tucked into the food with a will, Russ among them. He did draw some added attention by referring from time to time to a wristwatch, and at precisely ten o'clock took the second Polyjuice pill of the day.

Ravenclaw house was in a tower on the west side of the castle. It was, in fact, next to and south of the Astronomy Tower, and Russ was not particularly happy about having to pass near that tower on a daily basis. It held more than one bad memory.

Like Gryffindor Tower, Ravenclaw Tower was guarded by a portrait, this one being of an itinerant peddler leading a well-laden donkey. One of the prefects (Russ recognized him as Goldstein, A.) stepped forward and pronounced the password for the evening: _Sapienter_. Since it was already past curfew for all of the students, everyone obediently followed the prefects in, and most of them went directly to their dormitories.

That left Russ and the first years in the common room. Russ looked around curiously, noting differences between this and the Slytherin common room. To begin with, it was round. _Naturally, idiot, it's in a tower. And the predominant color is blue instead of green. I'll bet those windows are nice during the day, though. Slytherin could get claustrophobic._ Russ realized suddenly that someone was saying his name.

"Uh, sorry. I was… captivated by the decor."

"Right," said Goldstein. "I think Professor Flitwick already told you that you're a special case. All the class-year dorms are full, and we didn't really have anywhere to put you. So we cleared out a utility cupboard and put you in there. It's big enough for a bed and your kit, but not as pleasant as the other dorms. No windows, for one. No mates either. I told old Flitwick it was a rotten shame to stick you in there, but he rightly pointed out as we didn't have much choice. I mean, the Hat put you here, right? Well, this is your quarters. At least for the time being."

It was a broom closet. Well, to be honest, it was a quite large broom closet, but nevertheless a broom closet. There were, thankfully, no brooms in it. The bed was a spare, utilitarian sort of thing that exactly filled the back space. A tiny wardrobe, a miniscule desk, and a chair crammed the area so full that turning around became a major operation. And it was utterly private.

"I'll take it," Russ said, and counted himself lucky.

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_Tuesday, September 2, 1997_

The next morning, Professor Flitwick came in to give his 'beginning of year' speech. Flitwick spoke of striving for excellence, and of reaching for the stars. Russ found it just a tad boring. He kept looking for the 'you can have a brilliant future' and the 'you will be able to influence others and succeed in life' parts, only to find them seriously lacking. _And does that make me a Slytherin after all?_ he thought. _If so, why would the Hat make such an egregious error?_

The Hat, of course, was not available for immediate comment. Instead, Luna Lovegood commandeered him and escorted him to the Great Hall for breakfast.

There Russ got the first schedule of his classes. Potions, naturally the most important class, was not until Friday. "Wait a minute," he said, examining the schedule in more detail. "I don't have History of Magic." He checked again, then handed the schedule to Luna. He'd not been mistaken. He had first year Herbology, Charms, Transfiguration, Defense against the Dark Arts, Potions, and Astronomy, as well as third year Divination and Care of Magical Creatures. And Magical Creatures was being taught by…

Russ looked up at the staff table, then sprang to his feet and headed out of the Great Hall with Luna right behind him. Through the entrance hall he ran, out the door, and across the lawn to look down past the Whomping Willow and see Hagrid stomping around outside his hut, clearing up his little vegetable patch and getting ready for his first classes.

Luna raced up behind him, breathing heavily. "What are you doing, rushing around like that?" she demanded.

"Hagrid's back," said Russ, grinning.

"Well of course he is. He's a teacher isn't he?"

"He was gone all summer. Moody wasn't sure where, or if he'd be back. It's good to know he's still around."

"Will he know about you?"

"I don't think so. I'll check with Moody before I say anything to Hagrid. It's just good to know he's here."

Flitwick stopped to speak with Russ on the way back in to breakfast to tell him that if he did well in any of his classes he could be moved up to a higher year. Russ thanked him, and he and Luna sat down to eat. Unfortunately, they were separated from the Gryffindors by the Hufflepuff table, so he had no chance to talk with the others.

The hardest part about his classes was that Russ had to pretend that he didn't know how to do anything – just as he had in first year, only worse. _Here I've been using a freaking wand and mixing potions for nearly thirty years, and I have to act like it's my first time._ Fortunately they'd added to the story that he'd been in a wizard school for a short time, and that he came from a very accomplished family, so he didn't have to try to be a complete novice. McGonagall started talking about switching his classes almost immediately.

Astronomy was the one subject where he could shine, and shine he did. Astrophysics at Stanford was Russ's goal, and he knew all about the stars. He was set down for fifth year Astronomy at once, and it was understood that he would take the OWL at the end of the year and come away with an Outstanding.

And then there was Double Potions on Friday afternoon with Hufflepuff. Slughorn stared at him in surprise when he opened the door to what he thought was a first year class. Russ merely tried to look enthusiastic. _I'll bet the old fool hasn't even looked at his attendance sheet yet. If he had, he'd 've noticed the name at once._ In fact, it wasn't until he was halfway down the list that it registered with Slughorn why the taller, older boy was there.

"Well, class, you are probably all wondering why we have a fifth year student sitting with us in this first year class…" Several of the students began giggling, and Slughorn stopped. Russ raised his hand and waited politely. "Ah, yes, Moody?"

"Sir, you'll be relieved to know that it's already been explained by Professors Flitwick, McGonagall, and Sprout earlier in the week."

"Ah. Well. Yes. Of course. Now, if you will all take out your copies of _Magical Drafts and Potions_ and open to the first chapter, we're going to start with the first potion, which is for curing boils. You'll find it a bit complex, but I'll be coming around to give you a hand…"

Russ was alarmed. There was a whole preliminary discussion about safety precautions that was supposed to come first. He set up his cauldron, then raised his hand. Slughorn came over, smiling.

"I've been meaning to ask how your uncle is doing, Russell. I hear the Ministry is thinking of calling him in as a consultant…"

"I wouldn't know, sir. I had a question." When Slughorn nodded, he continued, "In my high school chemistry class we were supposed to wear goggles and know what to do with spills and I just wanted to know if any of this stuff was, well, dangerous."

"An excellent point, Moody." Slughorn clapped his hands. "Class, everyone pay attention. Before you start, there are protective gloves to wear while you crush the nettles, or they'll sting you badly. Also…" and he continued with some basic rules about lab safety.

Russ shook his head as he laid out the ingredients, following the book exactly since the modifications he'd made at the age of ten would not do here and now. _If he thinks I'm going to end up teaching his classes for him, he's sadly mistaken._ But the conversation had made him realize that he didn't have to play dumb about Potions.

Russ's potion was easily the best in the class. When Slughorn remarked on it, Russ simply shrugged. "It's a lot simpler than chemistry," he said.

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_Saturday, September 6, 1997_

Every day during their free periods, the six investigators spent some time in the trophy room looking for the gold cup. Ron and Hermione had added the information that there was a badger engraved on it, though Russ pointed out that this might have been altered. By Saturday they'd covered one-fifth of the trophies, noting each one in meticulous detail. They had seventeen possible candidates for the Horcrux.

At lunch on Saturday they took food from the tables and went outside to eat. Since Russ had been at Bill's wedding, they had a good explanation for why they were already 'friends.'

"I've been thinking," said Hermione. "Would every Horcrux have a caretaker?"

"What do you mean?" Luna asked.

"Well, Mr. Malfoy guarded the diary, and Mr. Ollivander guarded the wand. Professor Snape was here to guard the cup, and… What?" for Ginny had snorted and coughed up some of her pumpkin juice.

"He's Professor Snape, silly," Ginny laughed, and Hermione reddened.

"Sorry. It's just that… well it is easy to keep you two separate. You don't just look different. You act different, too."

"I hope so," said Russ. "It would be a bit odd having a fifth year who acted just like Professor Snape, though I did have to take over the Potions class." He told them about Slughorn, and they all chuckled.

"But Hermione's idea is interesting," Russ went on. "I've always wondered why he was so keen to have me at Hogwarts. Spying on Dumbledore wasn't that good a reason, and it certainly didn't explain why he was so angry when I failed the first time."

"You failed the first time?" Ron said incredulously, then stopped, blushed himself, and finished, "Oh, yeah," in a quiet voice.

"What do you know about it?" Russ asked.

"The prophecy. Harry told us all about the prophecy," answered Hermione.

Russ stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment, then turned his head to look at the forest. "He told me Potter didn't know."

"Who told you?"

"Dumbledore. He told me… promised me…" Russ stood abruptly and walked away from them toward the cliff edge.

Hermione rose and followed him. "Professor Dumbledore didn't tell him. Professor Trelawney did. She let it slip that you were there that day listening. It was just before Harry and Professor Dumbledore went to the cave."

"I'm going down to the lake," Russ said, and walked away from her toward the castle. Then he turned. "You can come if you want."

The others followed slowly. "This isn't the way down…" Luna started to say, but Russ cut her off – "This way's faster," and led them single file down a narrow, almost hidden path along the cliff face. On the beach he bent, picked up a flat stone, and sent it skimming and skipping across the water.

"Where'd you learn that?" Ron asked.

"A friend," Russ answered. He continued to skip stones while the students waited. After about ten minutes, he came and sat down with them.

"The way I see it, we need to be really careful about this Horcrux if we find it. Not disturb it or anything. If Dumbledore was right, there were six. One was destroyed more than four years ago, but the Dark Lord was disembodied at the time and probably in Albania, so I don't think he realized it. It was last summer that everything started falling apart.

"First, Dumbledore found and destroyed the ring Horcrux. Almost immediately the Dark Lord checked and discovered the diary Horcrux had also been destroyed. He couldn't touch Lucius, but he could order Draco to perform a task that he expected Draco to die accomplishing, thus punishing Lucius with the loss of his son. At the same time he got the wand Horcrux out of Ollivanders along with the two people in Diagon Alley who might be able to provide information about it. He couldn't get the cup Horcrux out of Hogwarts – at least we think maybe he couldn't – because the school's too heavily guarded. He set a trap where the locket Horcrux had been because that one had vanished years before. That's five of the six."

"Why didn't he ask you to bring him the cup?" Neville asked.

"That's assuming it's here. I was never told about it, though Miss Gr… Hermione's idea that I was sent here as its keeper is a possibility. He was 'destroyed' so soon after I arrived, he may not have had the opportunity to tell me about it, if that was his intent. Since then? I suppose he may have been uncertain enough of my loyalty not to want me to have that kind of information."

"But if Draco's father was the guardian of a Horcrux, why did he give it to me?" asked Ginny.

"I don't know. Lucius isn't normally that stupid, unless…" Russ was on his feet again, pacing. "What if the Dark Lord didn't give the diary to Lucius. Right after he disappeared, Bella Lestrange, Rabastan, Rodolphus, and Barty Crouch attacked two aurors – your parents, Neville, to find out if the aurors knew where the Dark Lord was. Not, please note, if the Dark Lord was alive, but specifically where he was. Most of us thought he was dead. Bella knew he was alive. Was that because she had his Horcrux and knew what it was? She got sent to Azkaban, but she may have left the diary with her sister Narcissa – Mrs. Malfoy. Poor Lucius. He didn't know what he was guarding."

"All right," said Hermione. "We have a theory."

"No," Russ responded, rather automatically, "we have a hypothesis. Only after we find out if it holds up to testing can we call it a theory."

"You've got to stop pushing his teacher buttons," Ron laughed. "It's like being in class."

"So how do we test it?"

"That, Miss Granger, is relatively simple. We ask Narcissa Malfoy where Lucius got the diary."

"How do we do that?"

"First we have to talk to Moody."

The group was quiet. It was one of those moments when everyone has so much to think about that no one wants to speak. Russ went back to skipping stones, and this time Ginny moved to stand beside him and watch.

"I think I could do that," she said, and bent down to retrieve a couple of stones shaped like the ones he was holding. Then she watched his movements carefully, and finally sent a stone out over the water. Before long Ginny and Russ were in a competition to see which of them could make the rocks skip the most before they sank.

"Hold on, you two!" cried a loud, gruff voice with just a note of panic in it. "What d' ye think ye're doing down here? Ye're not supposed to be here! Not the two of ye together!"

All six turned at the sound to see Hagrid rushing towards them, a Hagrid with a wild, frightened face who looked as if he might be chasing away demons. Then he saw who it was, and became calm.

"Ginny Weasley! Ya did give me a turn there. I thought ya were… well, never mind. Who's the lad?"

"Hi, Hagrid," everyone chorused, and Ginny made the introductions.

"Hagrid, this is Russell, Mr. Moody's nephew from America. He's here for a few months, and Mr. Moody didn't want him to miss any of his education, so he's coming to Hogwarts awhile."

"I was wondering about the Russell Moody on the roll for Monday's class." Hagrid peered at the badge on Russ's robes. "Ravenclaw, are ya? Thought Moody was Gryffindor. Well, he's your uncle, not your father, so maybe…"

"He's my great-uncle. My grandfather was his younger brother. My father grew up in the States."

"That'll explain it then. It puzzled me seeing a Moody name in the double lesson for Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. How're ya finding Hogwarts?"

"It's different."

"Well, it will be for a while, what with… with Dumbledore gone and all… and McGonagall in charge. Not the same place, if you get my drift."

"I didn't really mean that. I go to a high school in California, not a wizard school, and the whole magic thing is strange."

Hagrid looked embarrassed and whispered, a touch too loudly, to Ron, "He ain't a squib, is he?"

Now Ron laughed. "No, Hagrid. Not a squib. Mom's a rich muggle who wants him to be like her."

"Don't talk about my mother like that."

"Okay! Okay! Touchy, aren't we?"

"Well, I got t' go back t' getting things in order. Been gone most of the summer, and there's a lot t' do." Hagrid paused. "They say Harry ain't come back this year."

"No," answered Ron. "He has things he has to take care of. We write, though. I'll tell him 'Hi' for you."

"You do that. And thanks." Then Hagrid turned and thumped away.

The afternoon was wearing on, and they all had homework. "Bet it's real easy for you," Ron muttered to Russ.

"A little," Russ replied. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you. Do you know what Potter did with my old Potions book?"

"Cricks!" Ron yelped. "That's right! You're the Prince!" Then he quieted down as the others turned to glare at him. "Sorry. Won't happen again. No, I don't know where Harry put it. If I think of anything, I'll tell you."

On the way back up to the castle, Hermione brought up the rear, her face wrapped in serious thought. She was puzzling over the image of a terrified Hagrid rushing down to the lake side where he had seen the obviously familiar figures of a slender, dark-haired boy and a redheaded girl skipping stones across the water, and calling out in panic, "Ye're not supposed t' be here! Not the two of ye together!"

Then, suddenly, Russ stopped.

"What is it?" Hermione asked, causing the others, who were in front, to pause and turn.

"I want to see it," Russ said quietly. "I want to see the tomb."

Ron, who'd been foremost, returned to face Russ, anger beginning to rise again as he looked down at the shorter boy. "You almost managed to do it, didn't you? You almost managed to make us forget what you did. Well I, for one, am glad you reminded me."

"Please, Ron," Hermione whispered, "you saw the pensieve. He was obeying orders, just like Harry."

"He is not –" Ron was choking on his renewed wrath "– just like Harry."

"You don't have to come with me," said Russ quietly. "Just point me in the right direction."

"And leave you alone out here? Not on your life." Pushing past Russ and Hermione, Ron led the way back down the path and towards the forest.

It was then that Russ realized where the tomb was. It nestled – if something large and solid could be said to nestle – right at the point where grass, forest, and lake met, as if uniting the three worlds and anchoring them together by its presence. The dip of the lake bank at that point, the needles and leaves from the forest, and the gentle intrusion of unmown grass and summer bushes, had obscured its sharp lines, making the tomb less obvious than it must have been at the beginning of the summer.

Slowly, reverently, the little group of students approached. For the others it was the first time since the funeral that they'd been there.

"Brings back memories, doesn't it?" Ron said next to Russ's ear. His sudden flare of anger was fading, but it was still there.

"I don't have any memories," Russ responded, almost mechanically.

"What do you mean?"

"Moody has them. I remember watching them in the pensieve, but I don't remember the actual event. And I wasn't here for the funeral. I wasn't really 'here' for anything for over three weeks." He paused, then continued, slowly and with some timidness. "No one's ever told me what happened after I… left. Would you…?"

It was Ginny who spoke. "After the battle, they found him at the base of the castle where he'd fallen from the tower – right near the front steps. He was on his back, kind of like a doll someone dropped there. He almost looked asleep."

"Asleep?" Russ looked around at the others. He was feeling dazed and confused.

"We don't know," Hermione said. "We weren't there. We were in the hospital wing with Bill. We didn't know yet that Dumbledore… Ginny went looking for Harry, and that's how she knew."

"Oh," Russ said. "Then who…?"

"Hagrid and Harry were there," Ginny continued. "And some other people who'd been woken by the noise – mostly Hufflepuff students, I think. I don't think they really understood what had happened. Hagrid took charge of Dumbledore's body. None of us saw him again until the funeral."

"But McGonagall? Pomfrey? St. Mungo's?"

"We don't know."

"The funeral was right here," Hermione said. "Over there was where they put all the chairs, and Hagrid brought his body down to the shore. It was wrapped in a purple shroud. There wasn't a tomb then, just a marble table. He put the body on the table. Someone made a speech, and then…"

Ron was speaking now. "Then the whole table just burst into flames, and after the smoke cleared… well, the tomb was here just like you see it."

Russ moved forward to stand before the tomb, to reach out and touch the cool marble. So it was over. They'd recovered the body and they'd had the funeral. Dumbledore's funeral. And Ginny and Harry and Hagrid had seen Dumbledore's body. Seen it that night. _I should feel something. Why don't I feel anything?_ He'd felt something before, when Lupin had to sedate him to keep him from thinking about it. Was it because Moody 'd taken the memory? He thought of the memory he'd watched in the pensieve, and suddenly Russ was angry, angry at Dumbledore. _You told me you would take care of the rest. You told me it would be all right. I trusted you. I believed you. Why wasn't it all right?_ Then the anger was gone and the emptiness returned.

Turning away from the tomb, Russ walked quietly back up the hill with the others and into the castle.

That evening at supper, the last two chairs at the High Table were filled. Both teachers were men, the first a thin elderly gentleman with snow white hair, and the second a much younger man in his late thirties. Students in the three upper years nudged each other whispering, for they remembered the second one. Russ was also surprised, though somewhat relieved that he would have backup. The new teacher was Remus Lupin.

McGonagall rose to address the crowded Hall before the food was served.

"You will all be pleased to learn that the last of our instructors have arrived, and I should like you all to join me in giving them a warm welcome. I see that many of our older students remember Professor Lupin, who will once again be teaching Defense against the Dark Arts. Now I know what you are all whispering, and you need to be aware that one of the reasons for the delay in his assuming this position is that Hogwarts has notified all of your parents that one of your teachers is a werewolf. Yes, a werewolf, but one who has for the past several years been participating in an experimental program involving a calming potion. The success of that program was made public in _The Daily Prophet_ about six months ago. I am pleased to inform you that no parents have objected to Professor Lupin teaching any of the students here."

The students cheered and applauded, and Lupin rose and bowed to the Hall.

"Now," continued McGonagall, "our new Transfiguration instructor is a real prize. I should like you all to welcome Professor Switch. I see that the name is familiar to many of you. It should be. Emeric Switch has authored several of our textbooks, including the _Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_, which means that you had better not just copy your essays from his books because he knows them all by heart. Now, a hearty welcome for Professor Switch."

That round of applause was somewhat less enthusiastic, and the worried looks on several faces said clearly that essays were going to be rewritten. And with that the announcements were over and the eating commenced.

Luna poked Russ in the ribs with her elbow. "I thought no one could be in that job more than one year."

"Professor Quirrell was in it for three. His first two years were separated by a sabbatical, and we think that was why he was able to return. During the third, of course, he had What's-His-Name living in the back of his head, so I guess it didn't really count. It's been three years since Lupin was in the job. He should be all right."

Russ was getting ready to go to bed later that night, and had already taken his ten o'clock Polyjuice pill, when Goldstein knocked on his door. "Headmistress wants to see you," was all he said.

Assuming that Lupin had probably filled McGonagall in on his identity, and expecting a rather unpleasant confrontation, Russ straightened his robes and headed for the spiral staircase. It was so much easier going from one tower to the other instead of climbing all those stairs from Slytherin house. Russ made a mental note that if Snape ever returned to Hogwarts, he should complain. The gargoyle was expecting him, so he needed no password.

The headmistress's office was rather crowded, containing as it did not only Professors McGonagall and Lupin, but also Flitwick, Sprout, and amazingly the new Professor Switch. Russ was now less certain of his position than before.

"Professor Lupin has given us some rather strange information, Master Moody. It appears that your presence here is part of a deceitful plan to gain information from this school behind the backs of the staff."

"I've been in the custody and under the control of Alastor Moody. Professor Lupin will confirm that I was in no position to disobey his orders."

"A likely story. How do we know that you're really Severus Snape?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Alterations have been made to Polyjuice potion, we've been told, to aid your deception. Prove that you're Snape. Tell us things only Snape would know."

Russ opened his mouth, shut it, then turned to Sprout. "A year and a half ago, during a sudden cold snap, you and I stayed up all night saving the herb crop. When Dolores Umbridge asked why we didn't request her help, we told her she wasn't qualified because of the low marks she got on her Herbology OWL" Sprout nodded, smiling.

Flitwick was next. "The highest possible hand in cribbage is twenty-nine. Most cribbage players never get it. You've gotten a twenty-nine hand twice, and the first time was on your birthday. I shall repeat what I said that day. I didn't do it. The hand was legitimate."

"I think I still have a cribbage partner," Flitwick chuckled.

"What about me?" said McGonagall.

"You," said Russ with a malicious grin, "are a compulsive gambler who has forced me to wager my hard-earned salary on the outcome of Quidditch matches ever since, as an innocent young lad, I started working in this den of sin."

Sprout fairly howled, and Flitwick prompted, "Tell them how much she makes you bet."

"A knut a game. And truth be told, until she got herself a decent Seeker I was winning pretty consistently, but it's the principle of the thing."

McGonagall was laughing now, too. "That's Severus," she gasped. "Nobody else talks to me like that. You have no idea, laddie, how pleased I am to see that you're alive."

"I was afraid you'd be pleased to see me dead."

McGonagall's face was inscrutable. "Ah, Alastor doesn't have all the information, and it's his own fault for playing the games he has, but you'll have to wait a bit on that because it's not entirely our secret to tell."

McGonagall gestured to everyone to sit down and got out a bottle of Dumbledore's mead.

"Now there's rules. First is, no one outside this circle knows. Slughorn as head of Slytherin and Hagrid because – well, you'll probably find out, but not now and not from me – should be in on it, but we can't allow it because neither of them can keep a secret. They'd both be winking and nudging and hinting, and soon the whole school would know. So outside this room, you are a student and we are professors."

"What about Potter's friends? They already know who I am."

"But they don't know that we know. And we can't let them. It's really Harry, Severus. He's been depressed and he's become reckless. There are things he can't know. Since we have to assume his friends will tell him everything, there are things they can't know. There are things you can't know yet either. Don't ask. You came into this school a week ago concealed in a lie, and you told me fifteen minutes ago you had to lie because you had to obey Alastor Moody. I accept that, but you have to accept that the reasoning runs the other way, too. I have my orders, and my orders are that you know what you have to know and no more. Don't argue. Now, there is one other matter. Professor?"

Professor Switch set down his goblet of mead. "I've actually been wanting to meet you for some time, Professor Snape, and now that we can meet, we can't. Instead, I have to talk to a fifteen-year-old boy, and you have to talk to an elderly man. But you and I have a lot in common, particularly a little gray pill we have to take every twelve hours…"

"Then you're not Emeric Switch."

"No. You and I have met, in fact, once before. And a little over a year ago you helped murder me just down the street from Number Ten. For which I never had the opportunity to thank you."

"Emmeline Vance?"

"Yes. Remus tells me it's your work with the Polyjuice that's given me the chance to escape from a very constricting situation. I understand your cage was smaller than a room. Mine wasn't much bigger. Oh, it was for my own good, I know, but it was getting horribly boring. Now I have a chance to be back in the center of things, reasonably safe, and all thanks to you. I'm Remus's backup, and one of your liaisons to the Order."

"Now," said McGonagall, "tell us what you and the students have found."

Russ told them all about the search for the Hufflepuff cup, and the hypothesis about each Horcrux having its own caretaker. Lupin promised to pass on to Moody a request to interview Narcissa Malfoy about the diary.

By this time it was very late. Russ returned to the Ravenclaw Tower, where a few students were still talking in the common room. Goldstein looked up and asked curiously, "Everything all right?"

"Messages from my parents. In the States. It's okay."

"Well, you get off to bed then. You're looking tired."

"Thanks." And he was tired. Also immensely grateful that the next day was Sunday and he'd be able to sleep in. Russ went into his broom closet, changed into his night clothes, and climbed into bed. He was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Sunday, September 7, 1997_

"What do you take that thing for?" Anthony Goldstein was watching Russ getting ready to swallow a Polyjuice capsule.

"Allergies. One of the problems with being born into money is you get the bad with the good."

"What are you allergic to?"

"Major categories? Animal dander, pollen, seafood… You want the itemized list?"

"I haven't seen you get any allergic reactions."

"See," said Russ, holding the pill up and then popping it into his mouth, "it works."

Professor Lupin came over to the Ravenclaw table. "Good morning, Moody, Goldstein." He pulled a parcel from his robes. "Your uncle asked me to give you this," he said as he handed it to Russ. He thought you might be missing your other world." It was a packet of the last week's newspapers – muggle newspapers.

"Thanks a lot, Professor," said Russ, his eyes lighting up. He immediately began scanning the headlines, and a look of sadness crossed his face.

"What's wrong," Goldstein asked.

"Diana died last Sunday. I didn't know. It would have been in all the papers at King's Cross when we got on the train. Stupid, stupid apparating! If I'd walked into that station like a normal human being, I'd 've seen it."

"Who's Diana?" Luna asked.

Russ and Goldstein both looked at her in disgust. _Which probably means he's either half-blood or muggle-born. Commonly known facts and current events would be an easy way to distinguish which is which. World War II for example._ After breakfast Russ passed the news on to his Gryffindor colleagues with the predictable results that Hermione was shocked and distraught, while the Weasleys and Longbottom were unaffected.

Much of the afternoon was spent in the trophy room. Russ had been a bit worried that someone would question why the trophy room had suddenly become so popular, but really no one else ever even looked through the doors, so no one realized they were there.

Each of the six had chosen a different glass-sided case and was taking notes on everything inside when a sudden intake of breath from Neville attracted their attention. The other five crossed to his side of the room and looked where he pointed.

The case was full of Ravenclaw trophies, and indeed the pedestal of this particular one was formed of azure squares each containing three bronze symbols that might have been broom heads or small sheaves of wheat – Ravenclaw colors – but on the rear of the double-handled gold cup, almost hidden by the larger trophy behind it, was clearly engraved the small figure of a badger. There was no plaque in front of the trophy.

"Do you think that's it?" Neville whispered.

"I think it very likely is," Russ answered.

They contemplated the little cup awhile, then Ron asked, "What do we do with it?"

"We leave it there, and we check once a day to make sure it's still there. And we continue with our cataloguing."

"What?" Ron was nearly speechless at the thought he would have to keep working. "Why?"

"We can't be certain until it's destroyed that this is the cup. It might be a decoy. What will happen if we start destroying Horcruxes, alert the Dark Lord to our activity, and then discover that we have the wrong one? If we have them all catalogued, we can at least go directly to other candidates and destroy them without wasting time."

"I don't like this undercover business. It's dead boring."

"That about sums it up. Boring and deadly at the same time. Welcome to the world of spying."

With a last glance at the cup, the group returned to their work for another hour. The long afternoon had been profitable in more than one sense. In addition to finding the cup, the trophy room was now nearly two-thirds catalogued.

xxxxxxxxxx

"How do you spell that?" Lupin asked. He and Russ were sitting in the Dark Arts professor's office after supper.

"P-e-v-e-r-e-l-l. Blue background with three golden sheaves arranged in an inverted triangle. Almost perfect match for Ravenclaw colors. It was a great place to hide it, assuming it's the right one."

"You don't think it was her coat of arms?"

"Rowena's? No. The Peverells came in with the Conqueror about a hundred years after the founding of Hogwarts." Russ laughed, laughing being somehow easier at the age of fifteen with no school mates out to ambush him. "Assuming the stories about the founding of Hogwarts are true. With wizards you never can tell."

"Why is the pattern important?"

"Dumbledore had me investigating the family. Apparently Voldemort's mother's family were descended from one of the branches of the Peverells. The ring Horcrux bore the same coat of arms. It makes it more likely that this is, in fact, the cup."

"Hmm…" Lupin stared at the name. "A Slytherin hides a Hufflepuff cup in a Ravenclaw case. Do you think maybe he imagines himself to be a descendant of all four founders?"

"It's not beyond the realm of possibility. Just because Slytherin's line narrows down to only one person, doesn't mean the lines of the others didn't marry in at some point. Only one person… I wonder how that happened. You'd have to have an abnormal number of single children in a row, or a huge number of deaths every few generations… The odds are astronomical. It would be much more likely to have the family die out altogether than to have a line last for a thousand years and end up with only one living representative. I'd be willing to bet Voldemort has distant cousins somewhere, also descended from Salazar Slytherin. They may not realize it, but I'll bet they're there."

"Aren't there books that tell you things like that?"

"GIGO." Russ replied, then smiled at Lupin's blank face. "Computer term. Garbage In, Garbage Out. The books are only as good as the people who compiled them. There's a lot of garbage in genealogy."

"Well, I'll pass this on. As you say, it makes the identification of the cup more likely. Could you stay a moment longer?"

Russ had started to rise, but settled back into his seat. "Another assignment?"

"More of a favor. The last time I was here, you brewed my potions, and you altered it in some way that made me less ill when I took it. I was wondering if you could…"

"Brew the werewolf potion again? I suppose so. Where? Here?"

It was Lupin's turn to chuckle. "You couldn't very well do it in the Ravenclaw common room."

"When's the next full moon?"

"The cycle starts next Sunday."

"Sunday! You're supposed to start taking that junk tomorrow! Do you have any of the ingredients?" Russ was already halfway out of the chair.

"Don't worry. I have a supply. It's just that it weakens me so much that I infinitely prefer yours. I can get by with this stuff for a while, but I'd feel better if I could get the better brew."

"We'd need a whole lab setup here…"

"Anything you need or want, I'll get it."

"When did you acquire money?"

"I didn't. Moody put me on an expense account. I'd consider this a necessary outlay of funds, wouldn't you?"

"Hey, if Moody's paying, shoot for the moon. Uh, sorry. Forget references to the moon."

"Don't worry about it."

The problem was – as Russ considered it later while lying in bed – how to reconstruct the changes he'd made in the potion. It would be a lot easier if he could get into his old office. In August, with the school empty and Moody beside him, it had been easy. Now it would be harder to get in undetected. Russ realized that in all the week he'd been at Hogwarts, he hadn't been down in the dungeon area to look, except for Potions class, and didn't even know if the office had been opened since he was last there.

It would have to wait. The first thing on his agenda Monday, right after breakfast, was the double lesson with Hufflepuff – Care of Magical Creatures. It was his first lesson with Hagrid.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Monday, September 8, 1997_

Care of Magical Creatures was one of the classes Ravenclaw had with Hufflepuff. Those classes were much calmer and more addressed to studious matters than either the ones with Slytherin or with Gryffindor. Now an attentive group of third years plus Russ gathered for the first class of the day in front of Hagrid's hut for their introductory lesson on the subject.

Technically it was Hagrid's fifth year as a teacher, though he'd not taught all of either his first or his third year, having been temporarily replaced by Professor Grubbly-Plank. Russ was rather interested to see how much Hagrid's teaching had matured.

First Hagrid took roll. As each student dutifully responded 'Present,' Hagrid made a check mark next to the name. Then he asked them to move in close and sit on the ground in front of the hut. Some found stumps and logs placed as seats, though not enough for all, while many preferred to lounge on the grass anyway.

"You might want," Hagrid said without preamble, "t' take notes, you know. I don't rightly enjoy it, but I got t' give you assignments and exams, so you'd best try t' do 'em proper, and you'll need your notes for that.

"There's a couple o' things you got t' know when you're caring for a beastie, and first of all is what you're raising him for. The little ones, now, might just be for fodder, in which case you just worry about how many they are and do they provide nutrition t' whatever eats 'em, and they don't make it sick. This usually means you got t' pay close attention t' where they live and what they eat, and weed out the unhealthy ones. And you got t' make 'em breed like crazy" – (here several of the students giggled) – "so 's you'll always have a good supply. That alone means keeping 'em healthy and happy, 'cause a sick, sad beastie don't breed.

"On the other hand, now, you might be raising 'em for potions, and there you got t' be more particular. Them potions brewers needs their ingredients pure and untainted. There you got t' be sure the right beasties breed – no mixing the strains, or you'll muck up the potions. This lot you can't let get sick at all, and you got t' have them at all ages and stages of development cause some potions needs the worms and others the wings, and they all got t' be as perfect as you can get 'em at that stage.

"Then there's beasts as we raise t' work for us, and by work I mean loads of different things from out-and-out labor t' exhibiting and competing – like dragons. Here the health and intelligence of the beast comes first, and since most of these are a bit large, you also got t' know how t' handle 'em, and train 'em, and physic 'em. Eh, yes, you there – Murphy."

"Please, sir, what do you mean by 'physic' them?"

"I mean give 'em medication when they're sick. And you ain't lived 'til you've given an enema to a hippogriff."

The laughter was general now, and Russ joined in heartily since it was clear Hagrid hoped for laughter. Russ was, in fact, immensely pleased with Hagrid's lesson so far. He'd come a long way.

"Finally, there's beasts that are wild, or go wild, and can do you injury. You got t' know how t' deal with 'em, and how t' treat their bites and scratches, and which are poisonous.

"Most of the real interesting beasts drop their young 'uns in the spring time, so we can't well deal with 'em now. In any case, you got t' start with the small and work up t' the big. So we're beginning with flobberworms, which can bear young any time of the year. Did any of you happen t' look at your books and can tell me how flobberworms reproduce?"

No one else raised a hand, so after a moment Russ did. It was, after all, in the text.

"Sir, they reproduce both sexually and asexually, bearing live young in litters and growing new worms from segments."

"Did you happen t' read up on the advantages of both?"

"Sexual reproduction with live birth produces more offspring, but is susceptible to crossbreeding. Asexual segmentation produces pure offspring, but the number that can be made this way is limited."

"Very good, Mr. Moody, and there's a couple o' points for Ravenclaw right there. Now, we got a nice pile of newborn flobberworms here, and each of you are getting a batch. You got t' look at Chapter Three in your books, and separate 'em into worms for fodder and worms for potions. Then you got t' care for 'em and raise a decent crop that both a livestock raiser and a potions master 'd want t' buy. That's right, I said buy. You don't think we raise flobberworms as a stimulating hobby, now do you? They got t' be commercial quality, or you don't pass the assignment."

Hagrid began handing out little specially-made flobberworm farms with triple compartments. The students were hauling their books out of their bags and turning to Chapter Three to find out what they had to deal with.

Now that he was no longer lecturing, Hagrid came over to where Russ sat.

"I wanted t' apologize to ya," Hagrid said to Russ. "I'm afraid I gave ya a bit of a turn Saturday, yelling at ya the way I did."

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know we weren't supposed to be by the lake."

"It weren't that. It's just that… well, I didn't see ye clear, and what I saw looked real familiar, like a boy and a girl I used t' know that'd come down and skip stones by the lake. Just like 'em ye were."

"Why would that upset you?"

"It were like seeing a ghost… except there's only supposed t' be one ghost, if you get my meaning. I mean, one ghost was expected, but two of 'em together, now that weren't expected. So t' find out there weren't no ghosts, well that was a blessing. Even t' find out that only the one were a ghost – that've been a blessing, too – but no ghosts was a real blessing."

"I'm not sure I understand, sir. You mean we looked like two students you used to know, and you already know that one is dead, but you were afraid seeing us together that the other might be dead as well?"

"That's it lad, and I was pleased there weren't no ghosts at all, and I see ya'll know what I mean."

_I see it means that you were afraid I was dead and are relieved to find that I'm not. Or at least to find that my ghost doesn't skip stones with Lily's ghost._ It was Russ who still addressed Hagrid, however. "I shall endeavor, sir, not to confront you with my ghost."

"Well, ya ought not to worry about it. I hope ya do well in yer lessons. Ya seem t' be off to a good start."

Divination was next, and Russ dutifully made his way up to Sibyll Trelawney's tower classroom on the north side of the school. He'd never been there before, not having taken Divination as a student the first time. As he looked around at the tables and the fussy decorating, the crystal balls and ceramic teapots in glass covered cabinets, he was reminded of signs put up on streets saying "Fortune Telling – No Appointment Necessary." _Maybe I can get McGonagall to switch me to Firenze's class instead._

When Trelawney came in and went into her 'see the future' act, it was hard to keep a straight face, but Russ managed it. The first session is always important in establishing class discipline, and the one teacher was not about to mess things up for the other teacher. It was clear, however, that Trelawney was not making an impression on all her students.

_I wonder what they would do if they knew she really was a Seer? That I heard her make an actual prophecy, one that is still unwinding today?_ Russ took out a quill and started noting down some of the little things Professor Trelawney said, thinking to check later in the year and see if any of them had come true. The action drew her attention to him.

"You there, boy in the back." She peered at him through thick glasses. "We have met before in a previous lifetime. You should beware a one-eyed man who will try to hold you in his power."

Russ stared at her in surprise, then quickly wrote the statements down. _Score two for Trelawney. She probably has a totally mistaken image of what that previous lifetime looked like or when it happened, and I'm sure she wasn't picturing Moody, but the words fit._

Then as Trelawney sent them to get teapots, cups, and saucers, Russ started thinking about that prophecy. _Pity I only heard part of it, and she heard none of it. Dumbledore knew the whole prophecy, of course. I wonder if he told all of it to Potter. Probably. In which case…_

He paused, then continued somewhat mechanically with the lesson. If Potter had told his friends the whole prophecy, then Russ might be able to learn it. They obviously already knew that he, Snape, was the one who'd overheard it and reported it back to Voldemort. But knowing the whole prophecy might be the key to finding out what Potter was doing, and to ensuring that Potter didn't do it stupidly.

It was lunchtime when the lesson was over, and Russ hurried down to the Great Hall to grab some food and join the others. "How was Trelawney?" Ron smirked, the Divination teacher not being one of his favorites.

"She knew we'd met before, and she told me Moody was trying to control me. And you should close your mouth before you start catching flies."

The group took their lunch out onto the lawn and sat picnicking. At first the discussion was about the new Transfiguration instructor, which Russ and Neville couldn't share because they had different classes. Hermione moved closer to Russ to talk quietly.

"Who was she?" she asked.

"Who was who?"

"The girl Hagrid thought he saw. The girl who wasn't supposed to be with you."

"Why would I know? Hagrid's never seen this student before," Russ gestured to himself, "how would I know who he thought he saw?"

"I've been thinking about it. I think you walk a bit like 'Professor' Snape, but a lot of the time you move the way you did when you were a student. Like when you were skipping stones. I think Hagrid recognized you and got scared because a fifteen-year-old Snape isn't supposed to be here. So why would he think he saw a fifteen-year-old Snape, and why did it scare him? Maybe because he was afraid it was a ghost. Maybe he thought Ginny was a ghost, too. Someone he knew was dead because he knew you weren't supposed to be together. I was trying to think who I knew who was in school the same time you were, had red hair, and is already dead. Guess who I came up with."

"I'd prefer not playing this game."

"Is that why Harry's dad hated you so much?"

"No."

"Truthfully?"

"Truthfully. In fact, at first it was Sirius who was after me. James followed him. Sirius thought I was too friendly with his cousin Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers. Later he accused me of corrupting his own brother Regulus."

"Did you?"

"Regulus didn't need any help from me. That's something Sirius never wanted to believe."

"But it was Harry's father who attacked you."

"So Potter told you about that, too. I'll bet he enjoyed watching it."

"Actually, no. He was disturbed by his father's actions. He didn't tell us about it until a year later, when he was thinking that maybe the Prince was his father because of that spell."

"James Potter write that book? Give me a break. He had trouble setting a cauldron right side up."

"But Lily was good. Slughorn said so." Hermione thought for a moment. "But when Slughorn kept comparing Harry's work to his mother's, Harry was really duplicating your work. So his mother's work was like yours… You helped her with Potions, didn't you?"

"What're you two talking about?" Ron asked, the discussion concerning Professor Switch now over.

"Just Potions," said Hermione.

"Right. Hey, Russ! D' you think you could help me with my Potions assignment? Quietly of course. It would look like I was helping you with your work."

"I'll take the matter under consideration."

"Oh, and I think I know where Harry put your book. There's this room…"

Russ waited expectantly for Ron to continue, but a look of cunning was spreading over Ron's face.

"On second thought, I'm sure it isn't there."

"Mr. Weasley, I would counsel you not to withhold information about my property. I may have the rest of the school believing I couldn't hex the enamel off your teeth, but you and I know better."

"Enamel off of teeth? Gad, Fred and George would love that one! Can you…"

"Ronald!" Hermione hissed.

"All right. We won't talk about hexes." Ron leaned over and whispered to Russ. "Not here and now at any rate."

"Will you show me this room?"

"Will you help me with my Potions assignment?"

"Extortionist!"

"Yeah. I guess I am."

"It's a deal, Weasley."

"After supper, then."

Lunch over, the students headed for their afternoon classes. Russ had Herbology. Monday was Double Herbology with the Slytherins, and it would also be Russ's first class with a professor who now knew his real identity. He hoped Sprout could handle it.

The greenhouses were warm and moist. Russ had always liked the plant world, with its soft green self-sufficiency. He felt very much at home in Sprout's universe, and would have even if the greenhouses and gardens hadn't already been so familiar.

Monday afternoon Double Herbology was the only class that the first year Ravenclaws had with first year Slytherins. On Wednesdays and Fridays the class was half the size and half as long with the two houses separated for practical workshops where they needed more individual attention. Mondays were more for theory and, as a result, note taking.

"I have your assignments from last week, and I must say they were a mixed bag. In general, most of you understood the idea of pollination, but got a bit vague on the different problems involved with insect, wind, and hand pollination. Here you are. Could you pass those back, please. Now, where is Mr. Moody?"

Russ raised his hand and stepped forward.

"Yes, young man, your paper was quite good. I was surprised. Do they teach Herbology in the muggle schools of America?" Several of the Slytherins, who hadn't met him in other classes, snickered.

"Not Herbology exactly, ma'am. We study a little science every year in the elementary levels, and then have ninth grade biology."

"And what year are you in?"

"I finished tenth grade. That would be your fifth year." Now the other students were listening attentively.

"That would explain it. I've asked the headmistress to move you into a class more in line with your knowledge and skills, but apparently that isn't possible as it would conflict with your magic-intensive classes – Charms and all – where you have less background. So I have prepared special lessons for you. The rest of the class will start today's assignment, and then I'll show you what you have to work on."

The rest of the class was instructed to select from a variety of flowers laid out on a workbench, dissect their chosen flower, and draw its reproductive system. Sprout set them first to choose a flower, but forbade them from touching the dissecting knives until she returned to supervise. Then she hustled Russ out of the greenhouse.

"I haven't really asked Minerva to change your classes, and I'm not going to. There's nothing I teach that you don't know already anyway, and this way I get some work out of you."

"What!"

"You don't think I'm going to let you coast along in a first year class like you were on some kind of holiday, do you? That replacement of yours is getting senile. He forgot to order puffapod beans for his classes, and now it's too late to put in an order for last year's crop. I've got some well along, but they have to be forced to be ready on time. It takes a gentle and exact hand, and you're the best one after me to do it. I'm pressed for time, but you have a couple of free hours right here. Greenhouse three. Thanks"

Russ couldn't help but admire Sprout's ingenuity. She'd freed him from endless boredom in the first year classes, made sure no one would have the same assignments he did, thereby freeing him from doing them, and gotten herself a guaranteed four hours per week's worth of assistance in the greenhouses and gardens.

The puffapods in greenhouse three were developing their bean pods nicely. Each pod had a tiny spur at its base that regulated the growth of the pod. If that spur was broken off roughly, the pod would die, but if it was pinched off at precisely the right point, the plant would put all its energy into the rapid growth of the bean pods. What normally took six weeks could be reduced to two. The resultant beans were of an inferior quality for expert potions work, though perfectly acceptable for a classroom demonstration.

As he worked at the delicate business of pinching off the individual spurs, Russ thought about the previous year and how Professor Snape had been forced to do a large part of Professor Slughorn's administrative duties. _In the end, nothing has changed. I'm still doing his work for him._

That caused Russ to remember that he wanted to get into Snape's office for the folder on his work with the wolfsbane potion. _I wonder if Slughorn is living there now. Lupin's moved into the Dark Arts rooms, so Slughorn can't be there, but I can't see him willing to move back into the cramped dungeon rooms. If he's not there, it makes my job easier._

xxxxxxxxxx


	5. Chapter 5 – Puzzle Pieces

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Puzzle Pieces**

It was very convenient that Russ's second afternoon class was the single Potions lesson. This was more like a lecture on theory rather than the double lesson's actual potion brewing. It would, regardless, get Russ down into the dungeon area without attracting any particular attention.

Potions was boring. Slughorn droned on and on about tinctures and tisanes and neutralizing opposites, without ever mentioning what the words meant. _This is what he used to do when Snape… when I was in Slytherin. If I hadn't already learned about Potions from Mum, I'd've hated every minute of it. I wonder if I'm this boring when I'm teaching this class._

On leaving the classroom, Russ turned away from the entrance hall and found the Potions office. It was still sealed with Snape's seals – untouched to all appearances. _Now that is truly odd. You would think they'd have searched the place after…_

A stab of panic shot through him, and Russ turned away from the door. _Don't think about it. Don't think about it._ He remembered as from a great distance of time that Moody had told him he got a little 'hysterical' when certain subjects were brought up, and had to be sedated as a result. _How many years ago was that?_

Two months. Only two months ago that he'd woken up and had to be sedated. Now a memory was rising from where it should have been locked down, and he had to put it back behind the door…

Russ hurried from the dungeons to the entrance hall and out the massive doors into the late afternoon sunshine. He was vaguely aware that someone was calling his name, but paid no attention and ran instead for the cliffside path that led to the lake. Only when he reached the bottom did he turn to see Hermione following him.

"What happened? You looked like you'd seen a ghost."

"Don't… Have to…" Russ was pacing in agitation along the narrow beach. "Lock down… lock it down… no medicine… think… think…" After a few minutes he became calmer. He could hardly remember a time when it had been so hard to shut a memory away.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yes. I think so. This was happening back at the end of June when I first woke up. I just need to put it away." Russ stopped and regarded Hermione quizzically. "You were there."

"I was?"

"That night. You and Luna outside my office. I had to knock Flitwick out to keep him and you from going up to the fight. Why were you there?"

"Harry told us to keep an eye on you. He'd just learned that you were the one who heard the prophecy and gave it to… to Voldemort."

"Don't worry. The mark's gone. The name doesn't hurt anymore. But you could have gotten into a lot of trouble being out of the dormitories and, as it turned out, in a fight with Death Eaters."

"We thought we were protected. We drank some Felix Felicis, Ron, Ginny and I."

"You drank Felix Felicis, but it didn't warn you to try to stop me from going to Dumbledore?"

Hermione stared at him. "No, it didn't. It should have, shouldn't it, but it didn't."

Russ closed his eyes, trying to keep the memory shut in a place where he could examine it from a distance. "Who closed my rooms, my office, that night?"

"I don't know. Not me or Luna, and I don't think Professor Flitwick was in any condition to do it."

"Somebody did. Moody and I went in there in August, and the office was untouched, exactly as I'd left it. So far as I can tell, it hasn't been searched – it hasn't even been opened. I wonder… if any potions material has been taken."

"Maybe they wanted to keep it for you… for your return… But that's silly. Everyone knew you'd killed Dumbledore. Harry was telling everyone. They would've wanted any piece of information that would help them find you and Draco. It hasn't been searched at all?"

"As near as I can tell, the office was shut and allowed to seal itself with my own locks. I only know a couple of people who could do that neat a job – Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Flitwick. But when? and why? Didn't anyone from the Ministry investigate what happened that night? Did anyone from the Ministry question you?"

"No. And you're right. That's strange."

"It's supper time. We'd better get back to the Great Hall. Tonight Ron's going to show me this famous room. You'll all be there, right? I'd like to talk to you about what happened after…"

There was nothing special about supper except that Russ wasn't hungry and consequently didn't eat anything. If it had been Snape years ago, Hagrid would probably have said something about being off his feed, but Hagrid barely noticed Russ. Which somehow, deep down inside, bothered Snape.

After a quick supper they all headed upstairs to the seventh floor and the perfectly ordinary wall that concealed the Room of Requirement.

"How can this be a secret room on a floor where half the school has its dormitories? You'd think someone would have found it."

"Harry says people do find it, but they don't remember how they found it, so they can't find it again. Dumbledore found it by accident once when he needed…" Ron looked embarrassed. "…a place to… uh… relieve himself."

"Sounds like the sort of story Dumbledore would tell."

"Anyway, Filch knows about it, and one of the house-elves told Harry because they all know."

_House-elves. Why do I always forget we have house-elves?_

"Here," Ginny announced. "Now whenever we had meetings of the D.A., we'd come here and think about needing a place to train for self-defense, and the door would appear."

"So Umbridge was right. But why was Dumbledore thinking of self-defense when he needed a men's room?"

"No, silly. Every time you need something, you get a different room. That's if no one else is using it at the time."

"We shall see who is 'silly' Miss Weasley. Now, Potter was in a hurry. I was in the lavatory on the floor below having just taken Malfoy to the Hospital wing. I sent Potter for my Potions book, which was in his dormitory right over there. He came here and opened the room, supposedly, found a place to stash the book, and was back in the lavatory with Weasley's book, breathing hard after having taken too long for the errand. Makes sense."

"You knew that was my book?"

"It had a stupid name on it beginning with the initials R. W. It doesn't take rocket science."

Ginny started giggling.

"At any rate, he was probably thinking that he needed a place to hide the book."

Ron began pacing in front of the blank wall. "I have to do this three times, thinking of what I need," he explained.

After the third pass, the door appeared and they entered, then stopped.

"I see that many people have found this room in the past."

It was enormous, and filled with mountains of discarded junk – furniture, books, miscellaneous items, piled in huge mounds with passages between like a maze. The room extended so far that its walls were lost in the distance.

"Look," said Neville. "It's the vanishing cabinet."

The cabinet stood against the wall near the door. It's own doors hung open, and the interior paneling looked as if someone had used a sledge hammer on it. Russ went over and touched it. "That's the cabinet they stuffed Montague into. But it wasn't this badly damaged. I wonder what happened to it."

The only response was silence. Russ turned to face the other five. "What's wrong?"

"Lupin smashed it," Hermione said.

"Whatever for? This thing was valuable. It was broken, but it was still valuable."

"You really don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"That's how the Death Eaters got into the castle that night. Draco fixed it and created a link between this one and another in Borgin and Burkes. He went through, got backup, and came back here. He told Dumbledore about it on the tower, and that's how Harry learned it. He told Lupin, and Lupin came here and smashed the cabinet so they couldn't use it anymore."

"That's how they got all the way to the seventh floor! It's where they came in."

They searched for the Potions book for an hour without success. Russ pointed out that Harry, being in a hurry, probably put it somewhere close to the door, but that still gave them a huge amount of territory to look through. "Another job after we finish cataloguing the trophies," Russ sighed.

Since they were all there together, it was private, and it was close to their dormitories, the six found chairs that were reasonably whole and sat in a circle. "You said you wanted to ask about what happened 'after.'" Hermione said. "After what?"

"After… the incident on the tower. Like more information about what happened to Dumbledore's body."

"We told you," Ron said. "We didn't see him. Harry said he was lying on the ground by the entrance, on his back. Harry took the locket and came upstairs."

"Remember, Ron," said Ginny. "I saw him, too. I went down looking for Harry, and I saw him."

Russ recalled Ginny's words from Saturday. "I know this is painful, but I need to know. You said he looked liked a dropped doll. What exactly does that mean? What was the condition of the body?"

"He was lying kind of sprawled on his back. His arms and legs were bent funny – that's why I said like a doll, or a puppet. Other than that he looked quite peaceful. His eyes were closed. Harry had straightened his glasses, and he said there'd been a little blood on his mouth."

Russ's eyes were glittering with interest, though his voice was soft and controlled. "What happened to the body after that?"

"Hagrid took it," Hermione said. "Hagrid kept the body until the funeral a few days later."

"What exactly did it look like then?"

"No one saw it. Hagrid brought him in, wrapped in that purple shroud, but no one actually saw the body. At the end of the funeral the table it was on transformed into the tomb you saw by the lake."

"Okay. What did McGonagall say at the funeral?"

The students looked at each other. Neville spoke first. "She didn't say anything."

"You mean nothing important."

"No, she didn't say anything. None of the teachers did. Only one person from the Ministry made a speech. At least we think he was from the Ministry. Then the table and body turned into a tomb."

"Turning a table into a tomb is a classy bit of transfiguration." There was a slight smile hovering around Russ's mouth.

"Now wait," said Ginny, "are you telling us that McGonagall made that tomb?"

"Maybe. It was Dumbledore's subject, too. He taught Transfiguration."

"But he was dead."

"The curious incident of the dog in the night."

"There wasn't any dog," Ron grumbled.

"Famous murder mystery. They're looking for a stranger who came into the stables, but Sherlock Holmes points out that if a stranger had come, the dog would have barked. The dog did nothing, so the person was not a stranger."

"So McGonagall's the dog. I like it," said Luna. Ron was now fuming.

"Look," said Russ. "A headmaster dies. Regardless of where the funeral is held, it's one of the duties of the new headmaster to say something at the funeral. No one with McGonagall's compulsive sense of propriety would shirk that task. If she can't, she appoints a deputy. But she doesn't. No one from the school speaks. And Dumbledore was asked three times to become Minister of Magic, but the Minister doesn't say anything either. They leave it to an underling. Albus Dumbledore's eulogy is given by a nobody."

The students were leaning forward now, sharing Russ's intensity. "Why?" Hermione whispered.

"I don't know, but I know this. Minerva McGonagall would never consciously tell a lie."

"What about Hagrid?" said Neville. "He saw Dumbledore's body. He took care of it. And he was terribly upset that day."

"Did he talk to any of you?"

"No," said Ginny. "He was crying, and then he spent the whole funeral sitting with his brother. He was sobbing the whole time."

Russ thought for a moment. "Hagrid is the key to understanding a large part of this. Look, I don't want to belittle Hagrid's grief or anything, but what are the chances he was… acting?"

The question was one that the others hadn't considered before. There were several moments of remembering and reflection. Then Hermione spoke.

"It's hard to tell with Hagrid. He's naturally very emotional, but I could also imagine him overacting. I don't know."

"We're going to have to find some way to learn what Hagrid knows. Like where he kept the body, or who else had access. This is going to be rough on the rest of you. I don't expect Hagrid to open up to me at all because he doesn't know me."

"I expect if he did know you, he'd try to kill you," Ron pointed out.

"Only if Dumbledore's really dead," said Luna. "Hagrid would know."

"Of course," mused Hermione. "If he thought you killed Dumbledore, he wouldn't be so upset at seeing your ghost by the lake."

"What the heck are you talking about now?" Ron demanded.

"I think that when Hagrid came rushing over yelling about how the two of them weren't supposed to be together, it's because he recognized Russ – as a fifteen-year-old Severus Snape – and thought he was a ghost. If you just see the silhouette, you know, the body movements."

Luna was intrigued. "Who did you use to come to the lake with when you were a student?"

The idea that Professor Snape may have had a girlfriend in school was a novel one. Even Neville was interested in the hints of a decades-old romance.

"No one," Russ answered, and glared at Hermione.

"I don't think that's true." Hermione continued. "I think it was a girl – the same girl you let use your Potions book. A red haired girl that Hagrid knows is already dead."

"I think it's time to get back to the dormitories." Russ stood and moved his chair back away from the group. "Clear up in here, the lot of you."

Luna was not to be put off that easily. "Did you really know Harry's mother? Was she the one?"

"Wait! Wait!" Ron exclaimed. "What do you mean – Harry's mum used the Prince's book?"

"Well isn't it obvious," said Hermione. "We know it was Professor Snape's book, but every time Harry made a potion following its instructions, Slughorn told him how much like his mother he was. So she was using the book, too. Professor Snape was helping her with her Potions assignments."

"Maybe not! Maybe they were her ideas, and he copied them from her."

"There you go, Professor." Hermione turned triumphantly to Russ. "Which of you was the Potions genius, you or Harry's mother?"

Russ stared at his hands for a moment, then sighed and looked around at the eager faces. "We were just friends. Just someone to talk to. I started learning potions from my grandmother a couple of years before I came to Hogwarts. I wrote that name on the book – it was my mother's book – when I was nine or so. All the lessons here seemed so easy, so I'd sometimes brew up my own stuff when Slughorn wasn't looking. That's why she noticed me. She was good, but she wanted to be better. We started talking about potions and ended up talking about everything."

"That was when you were sixteen?"

"No, we were twelve."

"But Harry said you hated her," Ron insisted. "He said you called her a Mudblood."

"That is a very long story, and I'm not about to tell it now. I'm serious. We have to get back to the dormitories."

They broke up the circle of chairs so no one entering the room in search of a hiding place would guess that a meeting had been held there, then separated, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville to Gryffindor, and Russ and Luna to Ravenclaw. A few people in the common room noticed the two coming in together, but they were beginning to accept that Russ knew the same crowd that Luna did, so there was no comment.

Russ went directly to his tiny 'room' and lay down. He had to wait until everyone was in their dormitory rooms before he could slip out again. If he started on Lupin's potion the next day, Lupin would have at least two doses of the improved mixture before undergoing metamorphosis. To do that, Russ needed to get into Snape's office that night.

By eleven-thirty, the coast was clear and Russ snuck out through the picture entrance and headed for the dungeons.

Russ felt perfectly at ease heading down the stairs late at night – he'd patrolled the halls on the night shifts for years. He therefore did not react properly to the voice behind him on the stairs that whispered. "Ooooh, student out of bed at night. Shall we tell? Shall we tell?"

Instead of being frightened, Russ turned and said, "Where, Peeves?"

This was most emphatically not what the poltergeist expected. His eyes narrowed for an instant, and then he began to mutter. "Nasty new students need to learn their manners, they do. Need to learn not to break rules." He rose above Russ's head and began to howl, "Stuuudent out of bed! Stuuudent out of bed!"

"Shhh! Peeves, settle down. I'm not…" But of course he was, and there was no getting out of the fact that Peeves was about to bring Filch and half the staff down on him. Russ cursed himself for not being more careful.

Then, for no apparent reason, Peeves was silent, his gaze fixed past Russ. Russ turned and saw the Bloody Baron hovering behind him, gouts of transparent blood staining his once rich clothing. _What's this? A convention?_ The Baron, however, was paying attention to Peeves rather than to Russ.

"Begone!" the Baron moaned in a deep, spectral voice.

Peeves went, and in silence, too. Russ listened for a moment, but there was no sound of Filch charging up the stairs. It seemed the Baron had stopped Peeves in time. "I… um…" Russ began, wondering how a Ravenclaw student should address a Slytherin ghost. He needn't have worried. The Baron inclined his head gravely and respectfully.

"Sir," he intoned.

"Baron," Russ replied with an equally respectful nod, and stood aside to allow the ghost to pass on his way to the top of the castle.

_What was that all about? Did the Baron recognize me? He must have. He wouldn't defer to an ordinary Ravenclaw student. Why didn't Peeves recognize me? Maybe because he's not a ghost. Poltergeists are different, aren't they?_

Russ reached the Potions office without incident and let himself in. This time, without Moody hanging on his elbow, Russ checked the two rooms meticulously. There had, indeed, been someone there. Someone had gone through the few papers on the desk and opened most of the cabinets. That someone had been careful to replace everything, but Russ could tell. It didn't bother him. It would have been more surprising, even disturbing, if no one had gone into the office.

Going to one of the file cabinets, Russ extracted the papers with details of his work on Lupin's formula. Then he looked around again. It was the smallest of the staff living quarters, but compared with his present broom closet it was palatial. He realized that he missed it. Then he let himself out, relocked the door, and headed back to Ravenclaw tower.

On the seventh floor, Russ let himself be drawn to the Astronomy tower. He'd heard from others that part of the ceiling had come down toward the end of the fight. No trace of that remained. It looked quite normal, peaceful even, but Russ could not bring himself to go nearer. Maybe later. Maybe in a few days. Maybe a few weeks.

Back through the picture and into his cupboard, and Russ was able to relax. He sorted through the file. The alterations to the potion were clearly set out. He'd expected no less from Snape. Setting the file aside, he extinguished the light and lay still, waiting for sleep.

_Why do I always forget about the house-elves? Is it because we never had any at home, and we don't see them at Hogwarts despite all the work they do? But what don't the house-elves know? They straighten and clean all the rooms, prepare all the food, run the castle in the summer… Potter learned about the Room of Requirement from a house-elf…_

_And the ghosts… Think of what the ghosts know. The Baron recognized me. Did he recognize Moody… Crouch? Moody was Gryffindor – no connection there. Crouch was Slytherin, but it was years before, and he'd been in Azkaban. The last time the Baron saw Snape was probably three, four months ago. But not Peeves. Peeves couldn't see…_

Russ woke the next morning knowing he'd dreamed, but not remembering what the dream was. He quickly got ready for breakfast, as it was going to be an interesting day. It was Lupin's first day in Dark Arts, and the first day in Transfiguration and Charms with both Switch and Flitwick knowing who he was. Not to mention having to find time to begin brewing Lupin's potions.

Russ met Luna in the common room, and they went down the stairs together to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Defense against the Dark Arts was first. Except to comment that he knew Russ's uncle, Lupin practically ignored him, the first part of his lesson focusing rather on the question that was uppermost in every student's mind – the whole problem of being taught by a werewolf.

"There was a time when no werewolf could have been allowed anywhere near non-affected people. Werewolves, during their time of change – which is called metamorphosis – are violent and cruel. I myself have been violent and cruel, though I have also been extremely blessed in that I never injured another being during those times. I did, however, have advantages that other werewolves do not.

"The first is that I was bitten as a child, and my parents were aware of it. They decided immediately that they would try to raise me as much like a normal boy as possible. Each month, before the full moon cycle began, I would go to a place where I could be locked up and not be a danger to anyone. Although the metamorphosis itself was horrible, both before and after, I could understand why care had to be taken.

"The next advantage was the headmaster here – I'm sure you've all heard of Professor Dumbledore. He also thought I should have the chance to be a normal boy, and admitted me to Hogwarts with the same precautions my parents had taken. Yes, Miss Wattleby?"

"Sir, is it true what they say, that he was murdered here in the school by one of the teachers?"

There was an awkward silence. "Miss Wattleby, the whole matter of what happened here last June is still under investigation. Until that's finished, I'm not in a position to say what's true and what's not true. Now, back to the lesson, because this is a lesson.

"Today there is a potion a werewolf can take so that during the time of metamorphosis he or she is still mentally a calm human being. I'll be taking that potion, but I'll still be away from you and in my room during that time. Can anyone guess why?"

Once again, as in Care of Magical Creatures, no one raised a hand, so Russ raised his. "Because you might forget to take it, and we'd be saying, 'Good morning, Professor Lupin,' but you'd be trying to kill us?"

Their eyes met briefly in the mutual memory of an evening when Lupin had, indeed, forgotten to take his potion. Then Lupin faced the rest of the class. "That is exactly the reason. Mistakes can happen, and with Dark Magic you must always be prepared. If any of you ever sees me as a wolf in the corridors of this school, you should run at once to the nearest professor and inform them because I might be dangerous.

"Not all people who work with Dark Arts are evil, but they can still be dangerous because the Dark Arts themselves are dangerous. Dangerous and unpredictable. You must never let down your guard around them."

Lupin then outlined the course, which would cover the superficial surface identification of a wide range of dangerous animals, plants, potions, and spells. For the first years, defense consisted in avoiding dark creatures and dark magic. Only the older students learned to actually combat them.

Russ hung back as the class left. "You handled that question nicely. Thank you."

"You're lucky you're in a first year class These kids didn't know you. The older ones are nowhere near as nice. They have quite a bit to say about you, and not all of it to do with Dumbledore's death."

"Teaching is not a popularity contest."

"Lucky for you. Why did you go into teaching, anyway?"

"I was ordered to. At the time it was a choice of Hogwarts or Azkaban. I flipped a coin."

"I didn't know. What would you have done if you had a choice?"

"Knowing what I know now? I'd've gone to another school, and then into the sciences."

"But you were always interested in the Dark Arts."

"Right. And I had a seaman great-grandfather who collected Caribbean voodoo dolls and shrunken heads from New Guinea. That still didn't stop him from having a real job."

They were both silent for a moment, then Russ went on, "I got into my office and found the notes I made four years ago. Here's a list of ingredients, most of them herbs. I can get them from Sprout, or you can get them from Sprout, or if you can't spare the time you can ask Longbottom to get them. He'll know exactly what to select."

"Longbottom?"

"Oh, yes. He's quite the herbologist. A potion master's dream herbologist, in fact. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a Transfiguration lesson."

Surprisingly, Professor Switch was not in the Transfiguration classroom. Professor McGonagall was. She said something to the class about Switch needing time to settle in, but that was just a ruse. From the moment he stepped into the classroom, Russ was warned by the gleam in McGonagall's eyes. It was payback time.

"Last lesson, you were all trying to transform a pin into a paper clip, and doing an abysmal job, I might say. Most of you haven't got a clue how to hold a wand, much less use one. Mr. Moody, would you step forward, please? Now here is a perfect example of how not to hold a wand, and if your uncle taught you that, I shall have to speak with the Ministry about revoking his auror's license. Hold your wrist steady, boy, and keep those knuckles parallel to the floor…"

"You shameless witch!" Russ hissed at McGonagall as the class broke into practice groups. "Knuckles parallel to the floor my aunt! Maybe I should show up your charlatanism by letting the class know what I can really do!"

"What you show three and a half percent of the school in my class will be known by one hundred percent of the school by supper time. Do you want to 'blow' your cover, laddie?" McGonagall flicked her wand at Russ's paper clip. "What a marvelous idea, Mr. Moody, to give your paper clip whiskers. It rather gets in the way of its primary function, however, so I would suggest removing them." She smirked at Russ and passed on.

The worst part about it was that his fellow student conspirators weren't supposed to know that the professors knew. _O what a tangled web we weave,_ thought Russ. _I can't complain about McGonagall without telling them McGonagall knows who I am. Which defeats some sort of purpose… oh, yes, Potter… so I have to suffer in silence. I wonder where she's from, because Wicked Witch of the West is taking on whole new connotations._

Not much was discussed at lunch except homework, and it was a mark of Russ's immersion into adolescent school life that he didn't see this as strange. Somehow reentering the teenage world had reordered his priorities, and homework competed with saving the world on an arcane but perfectly logical level.

Russ's only class for the afternoon was Charms, since he wasn't required to take History of Magic. Flitwick was gentle and supportive to everyone, but he, too, had his agenda.

"Swish and flick. Swish and flick. It is probably the most elementary wand movement there is, and if you cannot master it you cannot move on to greater things. Swish and flick… Now that is very nice, Mr. Moody. You have a certain natural talent with the wand. But then you come from a talented family. Swish and flick, class…"

The class then started on a basic levitation spell. As Russ was trying studiously not to levitate his feather, Flitwick paused to watch. "Do not hold yourself back, Mr. Moody. Do not hold yourself back. With your family background Charms should come easy. Just let yourself feel it. Good. Good! Excellent work."

_Good old Flitwick. I should get him something. He always liked maraschino cherries._

Towards the end of class Flitwick paused by Russ again. "I have heard that people in the States sometimes preserve a knowledge of British traditions that we in Britain have lost. Do you by any chance happen to know how to play cribbage? I have recently lost a cribbage partner, and no one else in the school understands the game."

Russ smiled inwardly as he outwardly feigned confusion. "Cribbage, sir? It was a game my grandfather, my mother's father, enjoyed very much. He taught me several years ago, though I'm not sure how much I remember."

"I'm sure it's like riding one of those… cycle-thingies. Once you learn, you never forget. I hope you will not object if I ask you from time to time to partner me in a game."

"No, sir."

"Excellent."

From time to time turned out to be that evening. "Mr. Moody. Would you happen to be free for two games of cribbage? That's about half an hour if you are any good at all."

The two sat at the end of the Ravenclaw table, and at first Russ tried to pretend he was rusty at the game. That turned out to be irrelevant, since none of the students understood enough to know he was rusty. After a couple of hands they played it straight.

"Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six, fifteen-eight, and three of a kind makes fourteen. All I need is three points and I'm out." A small crowd had gathered at the foot of the Ravenclaw table to watch this strange game.

"Well that six didn't help you, young man, but it helped me. Fifteen-two, four, six, eight, pair is ten, and double run of three is sixteen. I don't even have to count the crib. Thank you for an enjoyable game."

Supper was over and the Hall was emptying. Russ rose to join his mates, only then looking around and realizing how much this new relationship to the head of house had improved his status with the other Ravenclaws.

That evening after supper, four of the six conspirators spent an hour in the Room of Requirement while Ginny and Luna continued with the cataloguing in the trophy room. One hour was all the time they had to spare, since they all had homework, which they did in an unused classroom on the ground floor near Firenze's room. Russ's homework was unique in that he was the only one who had to try to do a bad job at it. The others were not sympathetic, even when it took him a full fifteen minutes to come up with a fatal, but nonetheless simple and understandable flaw in his Potions assignment.

Hermione scoffed at Russ's careful attention to his Divination assignment. "You don't believe in that stuff, do you?"

"You forget, Miss Granger, that Sibyll Trelawney really is a Seer. She's a bottom level, mediocre Seer, but you and I aren't Seers at all, which puts her more than a rung above us. I consider her vain and silly, but I am certain her opinion of me is also less than complimentary."

"All right, but what does that have to do with homework?"

"Who knows at what moment she might See again? I want her to feel comfortable around me. Seeing is a fragile talent. It tends to disappear when faced with doubt and ridicule."

They both jumped as Neville slammed his Charms text shut, shoved his parchment and books into his bag with ferocious intensity, and stalked to the door. Turning with his hand on the latch, he glared at Russ. "You know, other people's talents tend to disappear when faced with doubt and ridicule, too." Then he stomped out of the room, the door banging shut behind him.

No one said anything. Then Russ murmured, "Excuse me," quietly gathered his belongings and left, going up to the Ravenclaw common room to finish his work. He didn't look for Neville because there was nothing he could say to Neville. How, after all, do you explain to another person that you spent weeks hoping and praying that he would be the one to die?

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_Wednesday, September 10, 1997_

The notices were already on the bulletin boards, and may have been there since before breakfast on Monday if Russ had bothered to check, but broom riding lessons were beginning for the first years on Wednesday (Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw) and Thursday (Gryffindor and Slytherin). _Gad! I have to get on a broom? I hate brooms. Well, at least it will be beginning brooms. I mean, I have been on a broom before…_

On Wednesday, Russ joined the first year Ravenclaws for broom lessons, presided over by Madam Hooch, at three-thirty in the afternoon. It was, once again, a Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff session.

"Stand to the left of your brooms! Stick out your right hand! Now give the command, 'Up!' and the brooms should rise to your hand."

Russ's broom miraculously rose after a brief hesitation, but the brooms of many of the others stayed where they were. "How'd you do that?" whispered a Hufflepuff girl next to him.

"I think they're like horses. If you're firm, they'll obey, but if they sense you're timid, they'll do what they want. I'll bet some of them are gentler than others. Want to switch brooms and see if mine 'll obey you? They're just school brooms."

She agreed, and had the broom springing up to her hand on the third try. Russ was now having a little trouble with his, but he sent a perfectly Snapish nonverbal thought to the rebellious thing, and it settled down at once.

All in all, flying wasn't too bad. The first lesson was on techniques of landing – hovering and settling in, or coming in at a half-run. It being Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, nobody demonstrated the fool-around-then-fall-off-your-broom-and-break-your-nose technique, though it was understood that this frequently happened with Gryffindor and Slytherin.

When the lesson was over, it was time to go to supper. Russ looked around and saw his own friends watching, so he walked over to them.

"I was kind of hoping you'd fall off," said Neville. "That's what I did the first time."

"Were you acting out there, or is that your real broom-riding level?" Ginny asked. "That was pretty pathetic."

Ron grinned. "I don't think Ravenclaw's Seeker has to worry about the competition."

"You all came out here and wasted an hour and a half hanging around just so you could make fun of me? You're real easy to amuse. Maybe we should organize a picnic so you can sit and watch the grass grow. I understand that's even more stimulating."

"I think we should have a broom race," said Neville as they went into the Great Hall for supper. "There's something I'd beat you at."

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	6. Chapter 6 – Underlying Problems

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Underlying Problems**

_Thursday, September 11, 1997_

Russ was driven from sleep at three o'clock the next morning by searing pain in his left arm. He gasped "Lumos!," and groped his way to the door of his tiny room, managing to open it and stagger to the common room, where he collided with a table and knocked a lamp crashing to the floor. A moment later, Goldstein was beside him.

"What's the matter, Moody? Why are you out of bed?"

"There's something wrong with my arm. Gad, it hurts."

Goldstein wasn't a prefect for nothing. Instructing Russ to sit in a chair, he rushed to his own dormitory room where he was allowed a small amount of floo powder. Back in the common room, he flung it at the grate and cried, "Madam Pomfrey!" Within seconds she responded.

"What is it, Ravenclaw?"

"I have a student complaining of severe pain to the left arm. It doesn't look like anything's wrong, but he's hurting bad, ma'am."

"Which student?"

"Russell Moody."

"I'm on my way. Wake Professor Flitwick, and young man…"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Pain in the left arm can be a symptom of a heart attack. Don't let him move around."

"You got it."

His first priority was to insist that Russ remain seated, then Goldstein raced from the tower to Flitwick's rooms, which were also seventh floor west. Moments later, both of them were back in the common room, Flitwick concerned, but Goldstein practically dancing with anxiety and itching for something else to do. Pomfrey arrived.

Pomfrey's examination of the arm was brief, then she turned to Goldstein, who snapped to attention. "Go to the headmistress. Tell her that Mr. Moody is very sick and that his uncle should be sent for at once." Grateful for the task, Goldstein sped towards the headmistress's office and rooms.

"Now, Filius, if you would conjure a stretcher, I'm going to get this arm into a sling. And you, Master 'Moody,' when did you take your last allergy pill?"

"Ten o'clock."

"Then we have to wait nearly seven hours before we can do anything. I'll try to make you comfortable, but you can bet that I'm going to give Alastor Moody a piece of my mind."

Ten minutes and a hefty dose of painkiller later, Russ was lying in the hospital wing behind a privacy screen. If anyone else was admitted, he would have to go into Madam Pomfrey's little private room, but for now he had the benefit of the larger area. McGonagall was there, as were Flitwick, Sprout, Lupin, and 'Switch.' All were looking worried, but 'Switch' more than the others because 'he' had more cause, having the same 'allergy.' Then Moody came in.

He went right to Russ. "You know, boyo, there's other ways of getting attention than scaring folks out of their beds in the wee hours."

Russ smiled. It was a weak smile, but a smile nonetheless. "I was just sleeping. That's all I was doing – sleeping."

"Well, you rest. We're going to talk a bit." Moody turned and nodded toward the door where Goldstein could be seen still waiting for more instructions. McGonagall went over to him.

"You did an excellent job this evening, Mr. Goldstein. Thanks to your swift action, Mr. Moody is now in good care and will shortly be fine. I know you weren't thinking of it, but I intend to give fifty points to Ravenclaw anyway, and a commendation in your file. Few prefects are faced with such an emergency during their tenure, and you showed your true mettle. Get along back to bed. You've still got a couple of hours' sleep due to you."

Goldstein went, thankful that his charge was now in professional hands. After he was gone, McGonagall and her staff pulled up chairs and sat in a semicircle around Russ's bed.

"So, Poppy, what do you think it is?"

"I don't have to think, I know. It's that butcher's job Alastor did on his arm. It's down in there somewhere festering. And if it's gotten so infected that it's broken through the Polyjuice body, it's bad. Right now I can keep him comfortable, but I can't treat the problem until the Polyjuice wears off."

"Maybe you don't have to wait so long, Poppy," said Moody. "We took some clippings of Severus's hair and made Polyjuice capsules with that. I can turn him back into himself right now."

"Use your head, Alastor. That would only make things worse. Those pills won't turn him into himself. They'll turn him into the Severus he was a couple of weeks ago when you took the clippings. I'd have to wait several hours longer before I could see the condition of his arm as it is now."

After a moment Moody said, somewhat petulantly, "I did the best job I could."

Pomfrey softened. "I'm sorry, Alastor. I look at it today from the point of view of what I have to deal with, and I forget how horrible it must have been for you to be faced with no time, no choices, and limited tools. I don't think anyone could have done better, and Severus was lucky you were there. But now we have time, and we have choices, and we have to make better use of them."

"What do you suggest?"

"I won't know until I see it. But he may have to give up this Polyjuice existence."

"And that," said McGonagall. "Is as far as we're going to get right now. Moody, we've made up quarters for you. The rest of us need some more sleep, and we still have three hours until breakfast that I suggest we make use of. Pomfrey will see that our patient doesn't get up and wander about. Tie him down if you have to, Poppy."

Russ drifted into a fitful doze that wasn't interrupted until around breakfast time. Then he roused enough to hear voices speaking at an immeasurable distance, neither near nor far being accessible to Russ at that moment.

"He can't stay here like this. No information is worth the risk."

"We have to discuss it with the others. We may need him to continue."

"Don't the students know enough by now? Surely there are other places…"

"It's not something we can decide. The whole Order needs to deliberate."

"What if he won't…?"

"What if he can't…?"

"We use what we can. We haven't been left with many options, and none of us is expendable. Has he woken up?"

"Not yet, but it shouldn't be too long. Ten at the latest when he begins to change."

"Has everyone been alerted?"

"We started the chain an hour ago."

"Let me know when he stirs."

"What if he won't?"

"We decide when we face that moment. Not before."

Then there was quiet, and Russ slept once more.

Just before ten o'clock, everyone was back in the hospital. This included not only Moody, McGonagall, and the four teachers, but Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Neville. This made the hospital wing rather crowded, and Pomfrey insisted they sit quietly by the door while Russ morphed back into Snape behind the screen.

"You certainly look like something the cat dragged in," was Pomfrey's first comment.

"I love your beside manner."

"Don't be sassy. Let's have a look at that arm. Lovely. Suppurating scabs. You must think I sit around here with nothing to do all day, you bring me an arm like that. It would serve you right if gangrene set in, and you a healer. You should know better than to leave that kind of injury untended for what, ten days? Have you changed back into yourself at all since you got here? Don't lie to me. If you had, you'd have seen and felt it."

As she scolded, Pomfrey worked, lancing the area to permit drainage, cleaning it and gently working in a salve. "It's not like it was some ordinary scrape you got falling off a broom you know. This tissue was damaged by dark magic, and it needs regular tending. Have you thought who's going to help you with this if you can't get to me?"

"Moody or Lupin…"

"Neither of whom is a healer. Acceptable for first aid and mundane nursing duties, but you need a real healer. Who else knows about you and this masquerade?"

"They're all in this room. There's no one else."

"There are other members of the Order who know about you, but none of them is a healer either." Pomfrey looked around the screen at the group sitting near the door. "Pomona, could you come over here, please? And you, too, Longbottom."

"Me?" said Neville hesitantly.

"Good herbologists are often competent healers. It comes of being attuned to living things. Come along now."

"Go ahead, Neville," Lupin whispered. "Professor Snape thinks you're an excellent herbologist. He told me so himself a few days ago."

"Wait a minute," said Snape. "What are you teaching them to do to me?"

"One emergency spell that can keep almost any condition stable for a short time until you get more expert care." Pomfrey glared at him. "Do you want emergency backup or not? We could always just let you die, you know."

Snape kept his mouth shut after that, and stared fixedly at the ceiling while Pomfrey taught Sprout and Longbottom the little chant: _Sano corpum e mali dominio, quamquam in mortis articulo_. Each then practiced on a small section of the arm, after which Snape was forced to admit that it hadn't gotten any worse. Neville was quite pleased because the spot he was working on stopped oozing and began to mend on the edges.

"Now, Alastor," said Madam Pomfrey, "you're going to have to do something about this Polyjuice. He has to turn into himself – his real self – at least once every two days.

"Crouch didn't," said Ron. "He was 'Professor Moody' all the time."

"And were you a fly on the wall of his bedroom that you know what he was doing in his sleep?"

Ron thought for a moment, then was silent.

"Crouch took hourly doses." Pomfrey continued. "He had frequent opportunities to revert to his own form in private. Severus has been enduring marathon sessions with no reversions at all. The true body doesn't vanish just because you take Polyjuice. It's still under there. If it's healthy, you have no problems. If it's sick or injured, it gets worse until the overlaying body can't contain it anymore. If you severed an artery and then took Polyjuice, you might disguise the injury, and even slow the flow of blood for a time, but in the end you would still bleed to death without proper treatment."

Moody shook his head. "We can't chance any of the students seeing him change. As long as he's in a house, he has to take a pill every twelve hours."

"Why?" asked Luna calmly. "Why can't he take the twelve-hour pills some of the time, and three-hour or one-hour pills at other times? Then he could come up here where Madam Pomfrey can keep other people from seeing him, get his arm checked, then be Russ again."

"Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday are the full moon," said Snape. "Fluxweed…"

"I'm on it," Neville replied.

Flitwick sent for his prefects to tell them that Russell Moody would be going to stay for a few days with his uncle in order to rest, and to ask them to respond to any questions from his house mates. Flitwick didn't mention what the problem was, that being a matter of strictest privacy, but all of Ravenclaw 'knew' that the unfortunate boy was suffering from a congenital heart condition baffling to wizard medicine, and that he would probably die young – a piece of information that for some reason was considered highly romantic, especially by the older girls.

"And to think," said Goldstein, whose role in the latest events had made him something of a hero, "he pretended it was allergy medicine. That's brave, that is."

McGonagall, who had not yet given up the duties of head of Gryffindor house – though it was understood that job would eventually go to Lupin, there being no other teacher from Gryffindor, at least none who was qualified – let her prefects know that Granger, Longbottom, and the two Weasleys, at the request of Moody Senior would go with the stricken young man, as would Lovegood of his own house. Since Ron and Hermione were two of those prefects, it meant the others would have extra duties.

"But as the poor lad has no other friends here in Britain, his uncle thinks, rightly so I believe, that he will mend better if he has comrades his own age with him. And it should only be for a few days – then things will be back to normal."

The heat of popular rumor was stoked to a raging fire by the group's means of departing Hogwarts that afternoon, since Madam Pomfrey insisted that both apparating and floo powder put too much strain on Snape's system. The frail and imperiled Russell (for Snape had taken a Polyjuice pill that would last just an hour) was carried down the hill on a stretcher to the Hogsmeade station, where a single private car attached to the Hogwarts Express engine was prepared to carry him to London. The tragic little procession was watched from the castle by all of Ravenclaw house and a respectable percentage of the rest of the school.

It was Luna, a mischievous gleam in her eye, who tried to disrupt the proceedings. "Eledora MacAlvoy wants to give you her body," she announced to Russ when they were halfway down the hill.

"What?" Russ exclaimed as Ron clamped a hand over his own mouth to keep from hooting with laughter.

"Her body. She thinks it's a shame someone would have to die so young without ever having had any pleasure in life, so she's going to see that you get… some. Of course, it's not like you'd be the first, but I say take what you can get."

"I am not the slightest bit interested in Eledora MacAlvoy! She's way too… well, she's the wrong age!"

"Watch out, Luna. Pomfrey says we're not to let him get too excited," and Ron doubled up so far with suppressed laughter that they were afraid he'd fall, so Hermione and Ginny had to support him. Russ hoped that from the castle it would look as if he were in pain.

"Eledora –" Hermione's voice had a waspish quality to it – "is a… a…"

"Tart?" Luna suggested. "I thoroughly agree, but you must admit the gesture has all the aura of greatness of soul – the tragic heroine with her hopeless love…"

"I'm going to strangle you, then I'm going to strangle her!"

Ron had stopped laughing and was staring at Hermione. "There's nothing to get worked up about. It's just a joke. For a bit of a laugh."

They were at the bottom of the hill now, and Filch had the gate open. "You know, Ronald," Hermione said with impressive dignity as she marched through the gate, "not everyone considers making fun of another person to be funny."

A horse-drawn wagon waited to take them to the train station, which was a longish walk away, and Ron was silent and withdrawn the whole time it took them to get there. Hermione fussed a bit with Russ's blanket, then watched the passing scenery, one hand still resting on the stretcher. Moody sat next to Russ as well. He'd observed the whole interplay with amused interest.

The car was one long room, like a club car, with tables and chairs, and a curtained-off section where Russ could let the Polyjuice wear off in private. About ten minutes after the train started south, Snape emerged, his arm again in a sling. Moody helped him to a seat as the car swayed along a curve in the track.

"Don't want you losing your balance," Moody said, then addressed the whole group. "We're not going all the way to London, nor to my house either. We're not even going as far as York. At Northallerton we're taking the track west to Leyburn. There's a safe house out in the countryside, between Wensley and Middleham. You'll like it, boyo. Nice open moor and fresh air. And not so far west of a little village called Snape. I'll take you there if you behave."

"You know, my great-grandfather's name was Wensley Snape. I wonder if there's a connection. I grew up in moor country, on the other side of the Pennines, in Lancashire. Do you know Pendle Hill?"

"Of it. Never been there. Isn't that historic witch country? Hermione?"

"Hmm?" Hermione answered. She was watching out the window of the train and hadn't been paying attention.

"History of Magic, girl," said Moody. "Lancashire witches."

"Sixteen-twelve," recited Hermione, "Lancaster Castle. Nine people from Pendle, seven from Samlesbury, one from Windle, and one from Padiham were tried for witchcraft. The nine from Pendle and the one from Windle were found guilty and hanged.

"Katherine Hewitt," Snape added, "was on my father's mother's side of the family."

"That'd be the Princes, no?" Moody asked, and grunted when Snape confirmed the name. "Hanged for being a witch. Barbaric."

"She wasn't hanged for being a witch," Snape said with just a touch of impatience. "She was hanged for murder. Murdering a child, in fact."

The students were now staring at him in horror. This was not in their textbooks.

"One of your ancestors murdered a child?" Ginny exclaimed.

"No," replied Snape, beginning to get irritated. "She was accused by two people, the simple-witted son of a friend and his nine-year-old sister, of joining with another woman to murder the girl by witchcraft. Nobody really knew why the girl died, medical science being a touch primitive, so witchcraft seemed as likely a reason as any."

"I thought," said Luna calmly, "that witches were burned at the stake."

"Heretics were burned at the stake. Witches, at least around here, were only arrested if they were accused of hurting someone. You notice that half the accused at that trial were found not guilty. For the ones found guilty, there were actual dead people they were accused of killing – by malice, not by accident."

"So," Ron asked, "did she kill the girl?"

"No, but one of them may have actually done something to start the case. She was begging, and cursed a man who refused to give her money. He had a stroke right there on the street that left him partly paralyzed. That's why the first arrests were made. Then they started accusing each other."

"Do you think it was a real curse?"

"It may have been. She wasn't too bright."

"I thought," continued Luna in the same, almost dreamy tone, "that hundreds of thousands of witches were tried and killed, maybe millions. Four hundred in one day in southern France."

"Is Binns still teaching that tripe? He should stick to goblin wars – that's what he's good at. Of course, he died before modern research debunked that story. Miss Lovegood, that tale was a forgery compiled by a rather bad author who spent most of his time writing horror stories about vampires. Not a word of truth in it. Anybody who really knew anything about medieval history would know at once it was a lie."

Moody laid a hand on Snape's good arm. "Like Fortescue?"

"Damn," Snape breathed softly. "That's how he recruited Death Eaters in the seventies. That's how he got me."

"Come again?"

"Fear of a witch-burning craze. Lots of Death Eaters at the time were afraid of muggle riots. They joined the Dark Lord for protection. Sometimes the Dark Lord sent muggles under Imperius curses to attack witches in order to feed the panic. That's how my grandmother died, burned to death in her own house. I was still in school when it happened, but that's the main reason I became a Death Eater."

"He might do it again?"

"Why not? It worked before. Modern research knows that witch hunts weren't as widespread or as large as people used to believe, but witches still think they were." Snape gestured towards the students. "We even still teach it at Hogwarts. Fortescue is one of the few who would know the truth. I thought earlier, when Dumbledore had me investigating the founders, trying to locate possible artifacts for Horcruxes, that Fortescue was kidnapped because of that knowledge. I still do, but there could have been more than one reason."

It was late by the time the train arrived at Leyburn, but that was intentional. It meant fewer people would see them arrive. They were met at the station by an old, nondescript van just big enough for them and their few bags. The welcoming party consisted of one – Yaxley.

"I didn't know you could drive," said Snape by way of a greeting.

"I couldn't. Had to learn. The boss wants no magic out here. Too detectable. I sure hope you can cook. My cooking's terrible."

"No magic!" cried Ron, focusing on the one part of the conversation that affected him personally. "What are we going to do?"

"Pretend you're underage," snapped Moody. "It wasn't all that long ago. We don't know if Voldemort can detect odd magical spells, but the Ministry can. And he may have spies in the Ministry still. And any rate, we don't want the Ministry knowing about this place, so no magic."

The road was narrow but good as they headed south towards Middleham, then became more of a dirt path when Yaxley turned west. Under a moon that was almost full, they got glimpses of gently rolling hills covered with grass and scrub, with here and there a stand of trees in a lower part of the ground where a spring provided more water.

The farmhouse loomed rather large in the night, long and low – a single-storied building with a peaked roof that had probably once been thatched, but which was shingled now. It also probably once had a dirt floor, but someone had long since put in a wooden one, and they had to go up several steps to enter.

Ron, forgetting, started to say Lumos, but Moody gently placed his hand over Ron's mouth to stop him and tossed a box of matches to Yaxley. "Lamps are on the table," he said to Snape. They were oil lamps with tall glass chimneys. "Hope you know how to use a coal grate."

"I have one at home. If dad was out of work and we couldn't pay the gas and electricity, it was all we had. Any chance of a charcoal grill?"

"There!" crowed Yaxley. "He can cook!"

"Not unaided, I can't. I've only got one good arm."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"You try cracking open an egg one-handed. Or flipping an omelet when you can't hold the pan steady. We do have eggs, don't we?"

"Got one of those plastic cooler things filled with ice. Got milk, cheese, eggs, sausages, ham, bread…"

"Any onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, salt, pepper, butter…"

The students were silently setting out cots and sleeping bags. Ron especially was paying attention to the discussion about food. It had been his first concern when he'd heard they weren't allowed to use magic, and although he'd supped on the train, he was mightily concerned about breakfast. From Snape and Yaxley's conversation, it sounded like that wouldn't be a problem. Ron was immensely relieved.

Snape had started pulling open cupboards and drawers, and suddenly cried, "Aha! a toaster!"

"But there's no elec…" Hermione started to say, then saw he was holding a small square metal grill with a long handle. "That's not a toaster."

"Well, little Miss Know-It-All, how do you think your great-great-grandparents toasted their toast in the days before Thomas Edison harnessed electricity? They did have toast, you know."

"I… never thought about it."

"It's time you did." Snape continued rummaging in the cupboards. "Ron thinks he can't live without magic, and you think you can't live without electricity, and for thousands of years people have been doing without both. Come now, girl. These wizards are lost without a wand, but you're a muggle. You have mechanical ingenuity and skill. It's in your blood."

"I didn't think about it like that. I thought being a muggle was… you know."

"Inferior. I know, I felt the same way. But muggles beat wizards in survival skills hands down. Never forget that."

"I thought you were proud of your wizard blood. You're the Half-Blood Prince."

Snape turned and faced her, a skillet in his good hand. "That was my mother's book. I started looking at it when I was eight, and wrote the inscription when I was nine. At the time I… didn't have a good relationship with my father. One of the wonderful things about knowing… her… was that I started to think that the muggle side of me was special, too."

There was an awkward pause. "Mr. Weasley," Snape said suddenly, "if you are awake early enough tomorrow morning, I shall teach you how to continue to eat well even without magic."

"I'll be there, sir," said Ron, grinning.

There was one actual bed in the farmhouse, and by Moody's decree it went to Snape. When Snape tried to object, Moody reminded him that the whole group's chances of returning quickly to Hogwarts or their normal lives rested on his, Snape's, getting well soon. "And I want to return to my normal life as soon as possible, so you're sleeping in the bed." At that point, all argument ceased.

Snape didn't sleep well. A couple of hours after they were all in bed, the pain in his arm woke him. He managed to light a lamp and check the scabs, which appeared unchanged. _Just the painkiller wearing off_, he reasoned. Before six in the morning he was up and moving about, trying to get everything ready for breakfast, there being no other activity to occupy his mind or his time. Unfortunately, there were things that couldn't be done one-handed. Like chop onions.

Neville was up soon after, and Snape set him to chopping the onions and the mushrooms. Hermione roused next and was given the task of grating cheese and cracking eggs open. Shortly thereafter everyone was awake, and breakfast proper could begin.

Ron was the cook, Snape being unable to beat eggs or flip omelets one-handed. To Ron was explained the absorbent qualities of onions and mushrooms that made it necessary to fry them separately and hold them to one side, the advantages of mixing just a touch of milk into the eggs, the way to judge the heat of the pan by holding one's hand over it, so that the eggs would not cook too quickly, and how to regulate the heat by moving the pan towards or away from the grate. Ron had to gently lift the edges of the omelet to let the uncooked eggs slip under the already cooked part, and Ron had to flip the omelet before it overcooked on one side. And of course, Ron got to taste the finished omelet first, go beet-red with pride, and hurry to cook more.

Luna was the toaster, holding the slices of bread near the coals in the wire grill, while Ginny buttered the toasted bread as each slice was done. Hermione and Neville set the table, and Yaxley fried up sausages and ham in another skillet. Moody was going to do the shopping later, and so was at first spared this round of labor. He relaxed and watched the bustle of activity until Snape screeched, "Coffee!" sending him to fill a coffee pot with water from the pump set by the kitchen sink, and get the coffee brewing next to the grate.

Breakfast was an extremely satisfying meal, each having contributed something to it. There wasn't a lot of talking, but the level of eating made up for it. The five students cleared up afterwards while the three adults went over shopping lists and menus.

"You do have money, right?" Snape insisted. "It's only for a few days, and we haven't much to entertain ourselves with except food. I say get a leg of lamb."

"That'll cost a fortune and besides, it's the wrong season for lamb."

"New Zealand. Have you heard of New Zealand? Or Australia? Get lamb. Submit a bill to Hogwarts when this is all done."

After Moody acquiesced, Snape began adding things. "Yogurt. And prepared mustard. Rosemary, bay, three chickens, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon..."

"You're going to bankrupt me!"

"Do you want to eat or not?"

Yaxley took copious notes and insisted on going with Moody to make sure he bought everything. After they were gone, Snape began to feel the lack of sleep. He was incredibly drowsy, and went out to the back of the house where lounging chairs had been set, easing himself into one. The autumn sun was warm and relaxing.

"Sir," said Neville next to Snape's ear, "would you mind if I practiced?"

Snape roused, and realized the boy was talking about the healing chant. He nodded and settled back while Neville unwrapped his arm and began humming the charm in a low, gentle voice.

The countryside was quiet except for the singing of birds. The sun was warm and soothing. Neville's soft murmur was almost hypnotic while the voices of the others registered far away, outside the realm of conscious thought. And Snape himself was sick, and very, very tired.

Within a few minutes, he had fallen fast asleep.

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_They descended from the carriages in front of the house in Mayfair, where police held back a crowd. Sirius was there, his hair wild, his eyes wild, too, from years in Azkaban. The police had trouble holding him back. "Let him have you, Snivellus! Let him eat you alive! But if he gets my brother I'll kill you!"_

_He looked at his left arm where the skull and snake, ornate and beautifully entwined, gleamed in pristine newness. Regulus laid a hand on his shoulder and answered, "Poor old 'Serious.' With honey he might have gotten two. With a whip he got nothing."_

_Hundreds of candles burned in chandeliers and mirrored sconces. Karkaroff came up to him in the foyer to shake his hand in congratulation. Music played and goblins in livery served them. The table was piled with delicacies, and he sat next to Cygnus Black in the place of honor. Around them dancers swirled in a stately waltz of black tails and white gowns._

_In the smaller sitting room, Wilkes and Rosier danced a mad tango. Bartemius Crouch stuck his head in the door. "Has anyone seen Barty? They said he was coming, but I can't find him anywhere."_

_A voice at his elbow commented mildly, "Have you tried the pickled mushrooms? They really are quite good." He turned to face Dumbledore, who laid a long finger against his lips and whispered, "Do not tell. I am not supposed to be here, you know. But Hagrid has done a splendid job, do you not think?" And he twirled in place like a ballerina. Then Dumbledore began to disappear until only his nose and mouth were visible. "The Baron spends a lot of time there," the mouth said, and vanished._

_Regulus sat next to him, admiring the new mark. "I got mine a year ago, when I turned seventeen."_

"_But you were still at Hogwarts."_

"_You can get away with murder in that school. It's amazing what they're giving out awards for these days. Cats have nine, but the going rate for people these days is two." He stood and walked toward the door singing, "Fame! I want to live forever..."_

"_Severus?" a gruff voice was saying from the piano, "Severus…_ How long has he been asleep? Come on, boyo, you need to get inside. It's clouding over and may rain."

Snape stood, still half asleep and let them lead him back into the house where Moody checked the arm.

"You're doing a great job, Neville. It's looking better already." Moody's voice seemed to come from far away. "Look here, Severus, we've got lunch for you. Yaxley says you love fish and chips, so we went to… Well, will you look at that. He's asleep again…"

It was late afternoon when Snape awoke, feeling infinitely better, alert and energetic. He started to get off the bed, but Yaxley came over to make sure he didn't get up too quickly. "What time is it?" Snape asked.

"'Bout four o'clock."

"Good. Time to start preparing dinner. I'm starving. What did you get?"

They checked over the things, which included a small outdoor grill. "For the lamb tomorrow," said Snape, and he set Yaxley to cutting up the chickens. The sound of chopping brought Ron like iron shavings to a magnet, so Snape showed him how to chop up the various root vegetables. Meanwhile he prepared the yogurt/mustard marinade for the lamb.

"How does he know all this?" Ron whispered to Yaxley.

"My understanding is, cooking's a lot like brewing potions. If you can't use magic, you get yourself a muggle-raised potions master, and you'll always eat well."

Later, over dinner of Moroccan chicken and vegetables with rice, Snape remembered parts of his dream. "Does anyone know of a place where the Bloody Baron spends a lot of his time?" he asked suddenly.

The others stared at him as if he were delirious. "Now whatever prompted that?" Moody asked.

"Nothing. I was just remembering something I heard a long time ago."

No one at the table had an answer to his question. _It's all right. The Baron knows who I am. Maybe the other ghosts do, too. I can ask one of them when we get back to Hogwarts._

That evening after supper, they washed up, then sat in the soft lamp light, the three men around the table and the teenagers on the cots or the lounge chairs they'd brought in from outside. There were some minutes of comfortable silence, then Ron attracted everyone's attention by clearing his throat.

"We've been talking outside, and we have some questions," he said.

"Thought you might," Moody grunted. "Where do you want to start."

"With him, of course," said Ron, pointing at Yaxley. "No offense meant."

"None taken. I work for him," Yaxley answered and looked over at Moody, waiting for him to explain.

"The problem is," said Hermione, "we've all seen you before, but none of us can remember where."

"I don't know where that would be, Miss. Not all of you at any rate."

Moody looked puzzled. Snape glanced around at the group, then addressed Moody. "Do you want to tell them, or shall I?"

"You mean you know the answer to this?"

"Yes, and I'd like it back eventually. Both of them, in fact. They are mine."

"What are you talking about?"

"My memories. The ones we've all looked at in the pensieve. That's where they've seen Yaxley."

Ron was on his feet, Ginny right behind him. The other three didn't move. "You're a Death Eater!" Ron cried. "You went up onto the tower to kill Professor Dumbledore! I remember your voice! You're the one who was telling Draco to kill him!" His wand was in his hand, pointed at the three at the table.

"Mr. Weasley," said Snape quickly and softly, "you use that wand, and we have to leave here immediately. If the Dark Lord finds out that Yaxley's not in Azkaban, he's a dead man."

"Now, boyo, we can always cut his mark off, too."

"I was in a shielded house with surgical scalpels. Those knives aren't sharp enough."

"You're serious," exclaimed Ginny. Ron put his wand away. Snape and Moody turned to Yaxley, who drummed his fingers on the table.

"Go ahead, Nigel," said Moody. "It's your story."

Yaxley coughed, then started. "Young Malfoy came through the cabinets that evening to Borgin and Burkes, and got Borgin to contact some of our people. There weren't many at headquarters that night – not expecting a call – but Greyback must've had standing orders. He organized a group to go to London and get to Hogwarts through the cabinets. I was worried because I knew Snape was planning to run with Malfoy if it came to it, so I tagged along. Just in case I could help. We weren't expecting a fight – you took us a bit by surprise there.

"Gibbon went up to the top of the tower to set the Dark Mark – that's when I knew Dumbledore was out and Snape would be waiting somewhere in the castle to help him when he got back. Draco went up the tower next, and when he didn't come back after a while, I followed Greyback and the Carrows up and blocked the stairs so only Snape could get through.

"That's when I realized that Dumbledore knew who I was. He was slumped against the wall away from the stairs, and though he greeted the others, he pretended he didn't even notice me. I figured you told him I was working for you. Draco was just standing there. He wasn't going to do anything, but the others were all for killing Dumbledore right there themselves. I told them to let Draco do it to stall for time. I figured eventually Snape would be called up to the tower.

"When he got there, things happened real fast. Dumbledore told Snape something through mind contact, then he looked right at me and said, 'Severus, please…' I figured if he was talking to Snape, there was no reason to do it out loud, so he must have been trying to tell me that Snape was about to do something that Dumbledore told him to do, and to just go along with it.

"Then all hell broke lose. Snape says the killing curse and at the same time blasts Dumbledore off the tower. He grabs Malfoy, orders us all down the stairs at a run, there's some kind of explosion in front of us, down the staircase, and I'm just about to follow the others down when I get immobilized from behind. It's the first I knew someone else was up there.

"Tonks found me, and I was in a panic. I was supposed to go to our safe house in Oxford and help Snape, but he was out there alone and I knew he must be in trouble. I convinced Tonks to send a message to Moody here to tell him how to get to the Oxford place, and I ended up with Moody, Lupin, and Tonks taking care of him for near a month. He gave us quite a turn there, you know. We thought we'd lost him. It was touch and go for more than a week.

"I'm still not sure what Moody did with the Ministry to keep me out of Azkaban."

"You know," said Hermione sadly, "I'll bet he was trying to tell Harry, too. Except Harry didn't understand."

"What do you mean?" Ron asked.

"When he said, 'Severus, please.' I'll bet he was trying to let Harry know he'd just asked Professor Snape to do something. Harry thought he was begging not to be killed."

"Albus begging not to be killed?" Moody was incredulous. "I thought that boy was close to him. Where would he get the idea Dumbledore would do that?"

Snape sighed. "Potter thinks I'm a killer. An alternate explanation would never occur to him."

"You? You've never killed anyone!"

"He thinks I have."

"He thought you were trying to kill him in his first year, the jinxed broom at the Quidditch match," Hermione said in a small voice. "Actually, we all did. That was my fault. I saw you muttering the counter curse and thought it was the curse."

Snape swept to his feet and seized a cup from the table. Yaxley was up immediately, flinging his arms around Snape's body, pinning Snape's arms to his sides, and the cup fell to the floor. "No magic!" Yaxley shouted. "No magic!" Since he was a much larger man, this action was effective in keeping Snape immobile. The others had sprung to their feet as well.

"I was just," said Snape quietly, "going to throw it."

"I didn't want to take any chances. Bella and that cousin of hers told us all what you did to the lab back in… London."

"Oh, really?" said Moody. "What did he do?"

"Telekinetic tantrum. Trashed the place by all accounts. Scared the sh- – the daylights – out of Bella."

"Didn't know you had it in you, boyo. I'll watch my step."

"Will you let me go now?"

"Oh, sorry." Yaxley released Snape, and everyone sat back down again.

"Excuse me," Neville ventured. When Moody looked at him, he asked in a very small voice, "Is it really that bad, doing magic here? Because I did some."

In the now tense atmosphere, Moody asked gently, "When was that, Neville?"

"This morning. I practiced the healing charm on Professor Snape's arm."

"He's right," Snape said. "He asked permission, and I told him he could. I was tired. I wasn't thinking. It's my fault."

"I saw him doing it when we got back and told him he'd done a good job. Does healing count? I mean, would they pick it up?" Moody was frowning.

"No one's come after us yet." Snape thought for a moment. "You weren't using a wand, were you Neville?"

"No, sir. Just the chanting."

"It's probably all right, then. It isn't magic on the same level."

"I can keep watch tonight, just in case," Yaxley.

"I'm sorry," Neville told Yaxley.

"Not to worry. You did exactly right. They're the ones who slipped up."

Snape was trying to remember the morning. "That may have been what gave me the dream. I have these dreams sometimes…"

"Don't tell me you're a Seer," Moody laughed.

"I should've thrown that cup at you. No. The dreams never tell the future, and I can remember them. They tell me things I should remember or be noticing. I even dreamed about Barty Crouch when he was impersonating you. I just didn't realize the significance at the time because I was sure he was dead. But something about the way 'you' were talking and behaving registered in my mind as Barty, and I dreamed about it."

"So, tell us this dream, boyo."

"I was young again, eighteen or so. It was the party they gave for me at the Blacks' London residence after I became a Death Eater."

"You were sponsored by the Blacks? You had connections!"

Snape gave Yaxley a rueful look. "Why do you think Bella always calls me 'puppy dog.' I'm her protégé. Anyway, we were going into the house, and Sirius was there threatening me if Regulus ever became a Death Eater and…" Snape told them the whole dream.

"A couple of things stand out, now that I think about it. First, some of the wrong people were there. Karkaroff, for example, who was never in that set. Then Crouch, who was never a Death Eater, and Dumbledore, who said he shouldn't be there anyway. And some people who should have been there weren't. Like Lucius, Bella, and Narcissa."

"They're all dead, aren't they?" asked Luna. "You only dreamt about dead people. Mr. Crouch said his son hadn't arrived, but he was kissed by the dementors, so he's not really dead."

"Maybe," said Hermione eagerly, "that's what Dumbledore meant about not belonging there, and what a good job Hagrid did. Maybe it means he's not really dead."

"Slow down," exclaimed Snape. "This is only a dream, not a prediction."

"At least," said Moody, "it's an indication that you don't think he's dead which, coming from the person who tossed him off the tower, is rather important."

"Now we know why you asked about the Bloody Baron," said Ron. "But don't you know where he spends his time? You're head of Slytherin."

"The Baron is a very private ghost who doesn't share his comings and goings with me. Although he does know that I'm Russell, or rather that Russell is me. There must be something I already know about the Baron that I have to remember."

"Was Sirius's brother really already a Death Eater before he left Hogwarts?" asked Hermione.

"I don't know. A couple of the others were, so I wouldn't be surprised. He mentioned awards in the dream, which may be a reference to the trophies."

"Of course," said Ginny. "Cats have nine lives, but the going rate for people is two lives. Maybe he even knew the cup was a Horcrux. That's the song – 'I want to live forever.'"

"Okay, stop," Snape said. "First, let's remember this is just a dream. But if Regulus had something to do with putting the cup in the trophy room in his seventh year, and if he knew it was a Horcrux, how would he feel when he found out the locket was one, as well? That there might be several Horcruxes? You do, after all, have to kill another person in order to be able to make one."

"Yeah, but that's nothing new. Everyone knew that Voldemort killed people. Are you all right?" Ron looked over at Yaxley, who'd jumped at the mention of Voldemort's name.

"Let's stick with You-Know-Who in present company," suggested Moody.

"Yeah, right. Sorry, I forgot."

"Actually, we didn't at the time. Realize the Dark Lord was killing people, I mean." Snape was pensive. "A lot of us thought he was protecting us against muggle violence. So it may have been a shock for Regulus if he found out that the whole thing was based on lies and manipulation – that the Dark Lord was lying to and manipulating his own people."

There was a long pause. Then Moody rose and went to the door and looked out at the moon, nearly full, that was more than halfway up the sky. "It's getting late. We should get to bed."

"I'll stay up a bit to keep watch," Yaxley reminded him. "Just in case."

"I think," said Snape, "we should discuss when we're going back to Hogwarts."

"Feeling better, eh?"

"Much."

"We'll see how you feel tomorrow. If you're still improving, we can talk about returning on Sunday. That way you youngsters," Moody included Snape in the comment, "won't miss out on too many of your classes."

Yaxley waited until just after midnight, then went to bed himself. It was a peaceful night. When Snape woke up, he found that Ron had already started breakfast and was showing Neville how to make omelets.

The group had just sat down to a breakfast supervised almost entirely by Ron – and a quite good one at that – when there was a knock, well more like a flapping, at the door. Yaxley got up and opened the door to admit a very familiar snow-white owl.

"Hedwig!" cried Ginny, who rushed to take whatever message the owl might be carrying, certain it was for her. There were, in fact, five notes with five short but personal greetings and the same basic message.

"Harry wants to know when the first Hogsmeade excursion is going to be, so he can meet us there and talk," Hermione said.

"Drat," said Snape, with a subtle note of sarcasm in his voice, "and I did so want to go to Hogsmeade."

"Why not go?" Moody asked. "Hogsmeade 'd be good for you."

"And run into Potter? You forget, he knows who I am."

"So what if he does? What's he going to do about it?"

"Do?" Ron scoffed. "Just tell the whole town and organize a lynch mob. Nothing to worry about there at all."

"See," Moody waved his fork at Ron. "Nothing to worry about at all."

"I'm pleased to hear that. So you take the Polyjuice pill and go to Hogsmeade in my place."

"Do I look like I'm crazy? Seriously, we'll be your backup. Nothing 'll happen."

"Until I get back into the school. Then they'll lynch me in the Ravenclaw common room."

"Harry wouldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because he wants you for himself. He'd never allow anyone else to steal that pleasurable duty from him. If he can't take you in Hogsmeade, he'll wait for a better opportunity."

"You'll pardon me if the prospect doesn't enchant me."

Ginny looked up from her note. "I think you're being horribly unfair to Harry," she protested. "He's not like that at all. He had a chance to kill you, remember, and he didn't do it."

"I'm not risking my life on a value judgment."

"Ha! You already did, boyo. You're the one who told him who you were and practically dared him to kill you! You gambled and you won. Now if that's not risking your life on a value judgment…"

"You're assuming I didn't want him to kill me. Given the alternative of having to endure your conversation for the next several weeks, I was rather hoping he would. Now that I'm away from you and at Hogwarts, however, my existence has become more endurable."

"I'm beginning to understand why your students hate you."

Ron let out a yelp of laughter, was silenced by a glare from Snape, then crowed, "You're not my teacher anymore and never will be again. I don't have to be afraid of you!" He began to stomp around the room chanting, "Never again! Never again!"

"I wouldn't get too cocky. There are other ways to take you down a peg besides docking points from Gryffindor."

"What are you going to do, beat me up?"

"You think not, Mr. Weasley? You want to go outside and watch me deck you?"

Ron was grinning from ear to ear. "Sure! You just give it a try!"

Yaxley stepped between them. "I know this is all in fun, but before it goes too far, Weasley, you should know you're facing the Dark Lord's premier self-defense instructor."

Ron snorted, then looked at Snape, then back at Yaxley. "Nah," he said. "I don't believe you. He's just my Potions teacher."

"You know, Weasley, I did have a life prior to the day when you walked into my classroom. You want to try me?"

"You're on!" said Ron.

"You don't really want to do this," Moody cautioned as the excited group moved outside. "He's taller than you, he's younger than you, he's got two good arms… Hell, if I was a betting man, I wouldn't be betting on you."

"I would," said Yaxley, and left it at that.

"Moody has a point," Snape said to Ron. "I effectively only have one arm. Why don't you take it easy for two or three passes, until I have your measure. More sporting that way."

"Okay," Ron agreed.

Ron charged, but instead of meeting the charge, Snape pivoted and grabbed Ron's left arm with his right, pulling Ron forward in the direction he was already going, at the same time sticking out his right foot. Ron fell on his face.

"I have your measure," Snape said. "No holds barred."

The combat was sharp, but short. No matter how Ron attacked, Snape was able to direct his forward motion to Snape's advantage, and with relatively little effort. At the end of five minutes, Ron had conceded defeat.

"Teach me how to do that," he said.

It was like being back at headquarters with a new group to instruct, except this time it was a group that Snape sympathized with. The girls and Neville had all been electrified by the vision of physical mastery without the need for physical strength. The first technique was the roll and recover, and no one threw himself more into the instruction than Neville. That dodging a blow was not only an acceptable, but a preferred strategy was a liberating moment for Neville, and he took to rolling and coming up shooting with a passion that Snape had not encountered before.

Of course, they didn't really come up shooting, since they couldn't use magic, but Snape insisted that they visualize what spell they would have ready if it were a real situation.

"Now," he said in a moment of rest, "this is information that may be useful. Every Death Eater I've ever taught has been taught to roll to the right. So if one of them goes into a defensive roll, you just aim your spell to their right, and you'll have them. You need to practice rolling both to the right and to the left. The left-hand roll may be more useful since it's the opposite of what they expect.

After the rolls, Snape started teaching them how to utilize an opponent's forward momentum to their advantage. That lesson was interrupted by lunch.

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"Wow! Up until today I thought fighting was all about what spell you attacked with and what spell you blocked with." The whole group was finishing up the fish and chips and the Moroccan chicken from the day before. Snape was trying to keep track of what was old and what was new, culinarily speaking.

"The spell you attack with is very important, Mr. Weasley, but only if you manage to avoid the spell your opponent is attacking with. You can't always do that with another spell."

"So you can show us what spells to attack with."

"Actually, I'm not that good at offensive fighting. I've always been much better at defending myself than at attacking someone else. If you find a better instructor at attack, go with him." Snape was far too busy with the proper disposal of leftover food to notice the reaction of the students to his statement.

"Okay," Ron said, but it would have been clear to a more observant person that his heart wasn't in the answer.

The most important decision of the afternoon was that the following day, Sunday, they would return to Hogwarts. This decision was made by Moody, as none of the others wanted to interrupt their 'holiday' away from school. Moody, however, had them writing replies to Potter promising to send him the Hogsmeade schedule as soon as they knew it, and packing their things for the trip back to school.

By late afternoon, Moody and Yaxley had driven away from the safe house so that Moody could apparate to his own home, retrieve some of the shorter term Polyjuice pills, and apparate back a far enough distance from the house to keep them all safe.

"What about our self-defense lessons," Neville asked Snape.

"I can continue that at Hogwarts. It doesn't matter what I look like, I can still teach."

The evening meal of marinated leg of lamb was a lesson in barbecuing for Yaxley, as he would be staying on at the house and have to cook for himself. The weather was pleasant, so they moved the table, chairs, and a couple of lamps outside to have more of a picnic. It was a quiet time, since everyone in general was tired from the exertions of the day. As it darkened and the moon rose, the men moved back inside, leaving the teenagers to talk among themselves with the admonition that they'd have to be in bed soon for an early start the next morning.

Moody watched the young people from a window. "You'd best watch out for her, she's taken a fancy to you."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Hermione. Ron noticed. He was ready to tear you apart on the train."

"That's rubbish. Maybe she doesn't dislike me as much as she used to, but that's all. She's no different from the others."

"It isn't you yourself. It's Russell Moody. She seems to think of you as two quite different people. The others do, too. Luna would never talk to you as Professor Snape the way she talks to you as Russell. But Hermione seems to have totally separated the two."

"Are you sure?"

"On the train it was very clear. She was quite protective of Russ, but as soon as you came out looking like yourself, she lost all interest. The problem is that she's going to see you as Russ all the time now, and she may completely forget about Snape."

"I could remind her on a regular basis."

"Don't remind her too strongly. You want these kids to stay friendly. If they blow your cover at Hogwarts, you won't be able to get out. Well, Minerva would probably help you, but the students would all tell their families, and it'd be a mess."

"I'll keep it in mind."

They were on their way to Leyburn well before dawn on Sunday. Almost no one was about when the Hogwarts engine with its one car pulled in and then out with its seven passengers, as Yaxley watched from the platform.

The students were ecstatic at being able to use magic again, and filled the car with balloons, confetti, strange cartoon-like creatures that they sent chasing after each other in the corners of the ceiling, and anything else that seized their fancy at the moment.

"It never occurred to you to have two separate cars, did it?" said Snape as one of the game figures zipped past his ear.

"Think of it as acclimatization."

"That or a pressurization chamber."

"What'll you do when you're back in the castle?" It wasn't a question about classes or student life, and both knew it.

"Follow the dream lead and see if I can find out where the Baron spends his time. I'd also like to know what Hagrid knows. Minerva must have information, but she can't share it with me, or I'd go to her first. I'm hoping to find out something about Hagrid's excellent 'job.' Then I'd like to get a closer look at that cup. After that dream, I wish I'd been sorted back into Slytherin."

"Why?"

"I'd like to look at Regulus's old dormitory. If he really was doing things on the Dark Lord's orders, there may still be something there."

"Sure. After eighteen years of teenage boys occupying the same space. You don't think maybe you're a tad overoptimistic?"

"You're probably right."

As they neared Hogwarts, Snape moved into the curtained area to take the Polyjuice pill – a one-hour one – and change clothes. Alerted by Moody, he now paid closer attention to the reactions of the students when he emerged.

Hermione smiled warmly, and Ron glowered. Luna got a knowing, mischievous look in her eyes, while Ginny seemed unchanged. Neville actually looked disappointed.

The train slowed, eased into Hogsmeade station, and released its passengers. A wagon was there to take them to the gate, Russ officially still being too unwell for the long walk, and then they all climbed the hill together. It was lunch time, but Moody and Russ went up to see Madam Pomfrey first.

In the hospital's small, private room, Russ turned back into Snape so that Pomfrey could evaluate the arm.

"Has Neville been working on this?" she asked and, on receiving a positive reply, commented, "The boy may be a healer. A real one."

A schedule having been worked out for Snape's seeing Pomfrey on a more regular basis, Moody left for home. Russ then returned to his form and went first to the Great Hall, where he was warmly received (especially by Eledora MacAlvoy), but where he stayed only long enough to pick up a sandwich and go. His excuse was that he had to catch up on his schoolwork.

Where he went was Professor Lupin's office.

Lupin looked nervous and edgy as he opened the door to Russ's knock. Seeing who it was, he stepped back to allow Russ into the room. "I'm glad you're back. I'm not as good at mixing this as you are."

"You need to know how to choose and pick the herbs. Especially not to bruise the vervain and the pennyroyal until just before you add them. Here, let me see what you've got."

They fretted over the Wolfsbane Potion for more than an hour – Russ taking one of his pills in the middle of the session – since that same night would be the first of a three-night werewolf cycle. Finally Russ handed Lupin a goblet of brew. "Is it time for the next dose?"

"Just about." Lupin drained the goblet, and they both waited. After about five minutes, Lupin smiled. "That's much better. Now, that pill you took. Was that the Polyjuice?"

"It was, and I know what you're thinking. You'd like this as a pill. But wouldn't it be easier in wolf form to lap it from a bowl than to take it as a pill?"

"Probably. But couldn't I have it in both forms?"

"I'll check. There might be some problem in that regard with the vervain. Meanwhile, I've brought Longbottom back with me. You might think about getting him to gather herbs for you. He'd get the most potent in the best condition."

"I'll do that."

"One other thing. I need a place to do some of my own potions work. Would you mind if I used your office? There aren't a lot of places where I can come and go freely."

"Be my guest."

On his way back towards the entrance hall, Russ glimpsed a familiar transparency gliding in front of him. Luckily, it was a beautiful day, and the students were outside enjoying the sun.

"Sir Nicholas!" Russ called.

The ghost turned and approached, grinning conspiratorially. "Do you think it's wise accosting me in an open hallway? Someone might see us."

"It's considerate of you to think of that, Sir Nicholas, but I believe there's no one here but us. May I ask you a couple of questions?"

"Of course, we're both on staff."

"Who do you see when you look at me?"

"Yourself, of course. Ah! I understand. I 'see' a teenage boy with dark brown hair and gray eyes. But the spirit that looks out from those eyes is a very familiar Hogwarts professor. I don't 'see' his shape, but I know his essence."

"Do you remember three years ago, when Alastor Moody was supposed to teach Dark Arts?"

"Oh, yes indeed, sir. Sad business. It was really Crouch's son."

"What did you see then?"

"We 'saw' Alastor Moody. None of us had seen him for decades, so we really didn't know if the spirit in his eyes was what he had become or not. And we had not seen young Crouch for more than ten years so, what with Azkaban and all, we didn't recognize his spirit either. But you were just here not four months ago, nearer three, so of course we recognize you."

"It makes eminent sense. Now, if you please, could you tell me where I might find the Baron?"

"Oh, he's clanking and moaning up there in his favorite spot."

"Where might that be?"

"The top of the Astronomy Tower, of course."

Russ raced for the seventh floor, a sense of impending discovery pumping adrenaline into his veins. When he reached the base of the Astronomy Tower, he paused, this being far from one of his favorite spots. Then, taking a deep breath and locking himself firmly down, he plunged up the stairs and out the small door onto the tower roof. At first he saw nothing.

"Baron!" he called. "Baron, may I talk to you?"

A clank behind him caught his attention, and he spun, still seeing nothing. Investigation, however, revealed the Bloody Baron standing in the crenellation of the parapet. The entrance to the stairway was like a small shed that rose from the tower roof, effectively blocking the Baron from the sight of anyone standing close to the stairs. When Russ moved over to where Dumbledore had been that night, however, he could clearly see the Baron's head above the stair entrance.

"Baron," said Russ respectfully, approaching the area where the Baron stood, "may I speak with you?"

The Baron inclined his head.

"Were you here, in this place, the night that Death Eaters invaded Hogwarts?"

Again the Baron inclined his head.

"What did you see?"

The Baron glided silently to the spot where Snape had stood that night, looked to his right, looked back to where Dumbledore had been, paused, and extended his arm as if pointing a wand. Then he glided to Dumbledore's position, rose majestically into the air, rotated to be upside down, and began the descent, a descent which he cut short to return to the roof of the tower. He then went to his original position behind the stair entrance, and from there glided quickly to the spot where Dumbledore had fallen and looked down.

"What did you see?" Russ whispered.

Turning, the Baron intoned two words. "Slow." And then, "Fawkes." Then he glided through the stairway door and was gone.

_I have to find the others. I have to get the timing._

xxxxxxxxxx


	7. Chapter 7 – Draco's Message

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Draco's Message**

They all sat on the narrow beach by the lake, each having given testimony as to what Potter had said.

"Let me get this straight." Russ was summarizing. "Dumbledore was thrown from the tower. Potter was released from his immobilizing spell many seconds later, by which time only Yaxley was still on the tower. Potter immobilized him. Potter never looked over the edge. Potter followed us down seven floors and out the entrance, but didn't check for Dumbledore's body at that time. Did anyone check for Dumbledore's body at that time? No. Potter stopped me near the gate, and we exchanged words and spells. Then Potter walked back up the hill and saw Dumbledore's body for the first time. People had only just started to surround it. Hagrid was with him…

"What alerted Hagrid? It was after eleven, near midnight, and he couldn't have heard any noise from the tower. If he was still awake, he might have seen the Dark Mark, but he didn't leave his hut until we were heading down the hill. Inconclusive. We weren't making any noise, but there's no telling when he might have glanced out the window.

"All right. There's at least fifteen minutes from the time Dumbledore left the tower until anyone noticed his body. Then Potter straightened his glasses and took the locket. He wanted to stay by the body, but you, Miss Weasley, came and led him back to the hospital. Slowly. Then you talked for a while…

"So we have a period of well over half an hour and maybe as much as forty-five minutes before the phoenix began to sing. From Dumbledore's 'death' until Fawkes started singing. Thirty to forty-five minutes."

"It took just a few seconds for Fawkes to show up when Harry needed him in the Chamber of Secrets," said Ginny. "And a few seconds to help Dumbledore in the Ministry when he was fighting You-… Voldemort."

"But half an hour when Professor Dumbledore fell from the Astronomy Tower," Hermione concluded. "Except the Bloody Baron said he saw Fawkes when Dumbledore fell… slowly."

"I'll tell you a secret," said Russ. "I really wanted to go to a real university. When I was at Hogwarts as a student, I snuck in math books and studied algebra, geometry, even some physics on my own. If Dumbledore had fallen from that tower, he'd've been going a hundred miles an hour when he hit. Potter wouldn't 've been straightening his glasses. There'd 've been blood everywhere."

"Does that mean Dumbledore's alive?" Neville asked.

Russ looked over at Neville. "I hope so," he said. "He told me that he'd take care of the rest, and I assumed he meant that he'd be all right, but it's a lot to take on faith, and I've been afraid all this time that maybe he wasn't able to take care of the rest. I know who'd know for sure, though."

"Hagrid," said Hermione.

"Well we've got to go talk to Hagrid," Ron said, rising to his feet.

"And our visit," Russ mussed, "is all the incentive Hagrid needs to reveal to the entire wizarding world that – oops – Dumbledore is still alive."

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm getting a little tired of your sarcasm."

"After more than six years, I imagine you would."

"I haven't known you for… Oh, right."

"You still have to explain what you meant," said Ginny.

"It's just that if it were a simple matter of telling everyone Dumbledore was still alive, Hagrid would've done it that night or the next day. They wouldn't have gone through the farce of a funeral service – a service at which no one on the school staff said a word, by the way. No, either Dumbledore is really dead, or something serious is happening behind the scenes that makes it necessary for him to appear to be dead. In either case, Hagrid isn't going to suddenly announce that he's alive."

"I still say we should talk to him."

"Suit yourself. We could at least get some useful information about what happened that night and over the next couple of days until the funeral."

"Don't worry," Ron said. "I'm going to pump him for some really useful information."

They all got up and made their way to Hagrid's hut, Russ lagging a bit in the rear since he wasn't supposed to know Hagrid like the others did. Hagrid saw them coming and came out to greet them, Fang waddling beside him, sniffing and lazily wagging his tail.

"It's about time you came by. I been wondering where you all were. I take it Harry didn't come back this year."

"Even in June he said he wasn't," Ginny told him. "He wants to hunt down Volde… You-Know-Who."

"Yeah," interjected Ron, "him and that murdering sneak, Snape. Harry wants to deal with both of them personally." The others were silent, and Neville especially looked miserable.

"Now Ron," Hagrid said, "that's getting a bit harsh."

"Harsh? For the man that killed Dumbledore? I mean, Harry told us why Dumbledore trusted him, but it doesn't seem half good enough, and in the end it was just hot air, wasn't it?"

"Well now, I don't rightly think Harry knew why, so how could 'ee tell you?"

"He told us that Snape gave Voldemort the information that he used to hunt down Harry's mum and dad, and that after they were dead he came to Dumbledore and said he was sorry, that he didn't mean it."

"Now that weren't what happened at all."

Russ suddenly realized how the conversation was going to end, and though it was futile, he made an effort to stop it. "I don't think we should be talking about this. It's not our business."

Ron gave Russ what for Ron was an evil smirk, squinting and wrinkling his nose. "I think it is our business," he said. "Go ahead, Hagrid."

"First off, Dumbledore didn't know how much Snape knew. He knew he'd overheard something, and he tried to read it in his mind, but Snape, now he couldn't be read if he didn't want to be, not even when he was just a boy, not even by Dumbledore. And then we didn't know who he might've told. Or if he told anyone."

"How did you find out?"

"Well Snape told us." Hagrid ushered the group into his hut. "I come back here after lunch one day and there he is with his head on my table, exhausted and asleep. He come through the Shack and the tunnel to tell us that You-Know-Who was after the Potters. It was the first we were sure of it. That's about a month after Harry's birth. Dumbledore questioned him for hours about his boss and his job, then sent him back to spy for us."

"He came over to the good side right after Harry was born. That was before Harry's parents died." Hermione gave Ron an 'I-told-you-so' look."

"More 'n a year. He was passing us information for more 'n a year, and it was gold. Our people stopped dying, and You-Know-Who's people started getting caught or even killed. Dumbledore was scared You-Know-Who'd find out, 'cause then Master Snape would be in real trouble, but we needed the information so we kept him there. And he seemed to want to do it."

"Why?" Neville asked.

"That's where it got personal, 'cause I don't think he did it to be on the good side. I think he did it for Lily."

"Yes!" cried Hermione. "It was…" Then she realized what she was saying and closed her mouth.

"They'd been friends from second year, and it tore him up that he might be the cause why You-Know-Who was after her. Here young 'un, I'm forgetting my manners. Here's a chair for you, too." This last was addressed to Russ, who'd been inching his way toward the door, but was now forced to sit with the group. He remained quiet, staring at his hands.

"Well, you know how it ends. That rat Pettigrew, he told You-Know-Who how to get to James and Lily, and they died. That's when Dumbledore knew for certain that Snape was sincere, 'cause when Snape got the news, he killed hisself."

The circle of students was stunned into total silence. "Killed himself?" Hermione ventured after a moment. "How…?"

"Dove off the edge of the Astronomy Tower. Mind, Dumbledore knew it might happen, and when Snape left the Hall, we followed him. Got there just in time, too. He was standing up there and just leaned forward. Two seconds later, and I wouldn't 've caught him. So if Harry says that Snape just told Dumbledore he was 'sorry,' well Harry don't know what he's talking about. I do. I was there."

Given the nature of the revelation they'd just received, it was not possible at that moment to pump Hagrid for anything more. Even Ron silently conceded that fact. After switching the conversation to more mundane matters for a while, they left and returned to the beach, it still being about half an hour before Sunday supper.

Russ had, not surprisingly, been very quiet the whole time.

"How did Hagrid know about you and Harry's mother?" Luna asked as soon as they were away from the hut.

"I had some… health problems at Hogwarts. Part of Hagrid's job was to monitor my diet and my growth. It… extended into other areas of my life, especially when I was younger."

"What did it feel like, killing yourself?"

"Lu-na! Leave him alone!" Hermione's nurturing instincts were rising with considerable force.

"All I have to say is that Harry'd better not find out that Professor Snape and his mother were an item, or he'll…"

"We were not an 'item, Weasley!' We were friends. She adopted stray dogs who needed care. I was one, Remus was one…"

"Harry's mum and Professor Lupin?" Ron pantomimed fainting. "Harry's going to have a fit!"

"If you don't stop talking about Lily like that, I'm going to…"

"Yeah? What are you going to do?"

"To hell with Gryffindor. I'm knocking fifty points right off the top of your head!"

"You and who else, Hollywood? 'Cause it'll take more than a pretty rich kid to knock anything off my…"

The three girls were already between them as Ron and Russ postured and threatened. A semblance of peace was restored, and they went to supper, the two Ravenclaws first and the four Gryffindors a safe distance behind. Only later did Russ reflect on what had happened.

_How am I supposed to remind Hermione that Russ isn't real, when I have trouble remembering it myself?_

xxxxxxxxxx

_Monday, September 15, 1997_

Russ was back in his classes on Monday, 'struggling' to catch up with what he'd missed, though most of his teachers were willing to let him ease back into things gradually. In Care of Magical Creatures, the others had taken care of his flobberworms, so he didn't have to start over. They were studying the digestive tract in general, which most of the students found either fascinating or gross and gave them something to ponder as they fed leaves to the worms.

Divination was still working with tea leaves, which Russ had already concluded was more akin to Rorschach ink blots than to Seeing, telling far more about the personality of the fortune teller than about the future.

"Look at this, dear," Trelawney said, pointing to a speck in the middle of a trapezoidal figure. "There is a blonde woman coming into your life, someone who will influence all your plans."

That caused a wave of suppressed giggling around the class, and Russ knew that the prediction was going to speed through Ravenclaw like summer lightning because Eledora MacAlvoy was blonde. It also reminded him of something he'd meant to do.

Before going down to lunch, Russ went to the owlery with a note for Athena to take to Moody. It was short and simple: _I need to talk to Narcissa. Have you arranged it?_

Lunch was outside with the whole group, Ron being very careful to sit next to Hermione and Luna appropriating Russ, but there wasn't much to talk about except the history Hagrid had told them the day before, and they were reticent on that subject.

"I've reminded Moody to arrange a meeting with Mrs. Malfoy," Russ said after they'd finished eating in silence.

"Where are they?" asked Ginny. "Nobody's heard from Draco at all, at least as far as I can tell."

"I don't know. Moody found Draco when he came after me that night, and he said they got Draco and his mother somewhere safe, but he wouldn't tell me where. I hope he lets me see them. Passing questions through Moody won't be as effective as talking to her face to face."

"Are you going to try that Legilimency thing?"

"No, Mr. Weasley, I am not. Narcissa is something of a friend, and I respect her right to refuse to confide in me. But there are nuances of voice and manner that one can read even without Legilimency."

"What will you ask her about?" said Hermione.

"The diary. How Lucius got it and what they thought it was. I am not going to tell her about the Horcruxes, though. It's not something she'd want to know anyway."

The afternoon was Herbology and Potions, and then supper. Athena delivered Moody's response while Russ was eating.

"What a cute little owl!" exclaimed a voice behind him, and then Eledora eased her way onto the bench next to Russ. "What's her name?"

"Athena," Russ replied, trying to ignore the faces Luna was making. "My uncle got her for me. She's from California."

"Like you."

"Yeah. Like me."

"Do you like it here in Britain?"

"I haven't seen that much of it."

"Maybe I can arrange for my family to show you around during the Christmas break."

"That would be…"

Luna chose that moment to lean across the table. "Eledora, dear, did you know that Benjy Crimshaw was sick this morning and upchucked all over the spot where you're sitting? I know they cleaned it up, but at the time… He was eating kipper smothered in syrup, and you know how sticky that can be."

Eledora hadn't waited for the end of Luna's little speech. She was off the bench and back in her own place before Luna finished. Luna gave Russ a quick nod. "What does your uncle have to say?" she asked.

"That if I don't need much time, it can be tonight. Otherwise the weekend would be better. I'm going to tell him tonight is fine."

Permission from McGonagall was necessary, but easy. Russ also paid a brief visit to Lupin to see how he was doing. That was a strange experience, as the only other time he'd seen Lupin in wolf form was the time he was nearly killed. Now, with the potion, the wolf was calm and friendly, and able to let him know, even without words, that all was well.

All was not so well with Filch, who grumbled all the way down the hill about having to make the trip twice, once to let him out and again to let him back in. Russ apologized profusely and blamed the whole thing on Moody, who would never be charged with the crime and thus never know his name had been taken in vain.

Moody waited just outside the gate, and from there they walked to the edge of town then apparated to Moody's home. "I hope you're on the hourly pills, boyo," Moody said as he poured them both a drink of wine. "We can't have them seeing Russell."

"I should be switching in about ten minutes. I'd better change clothes."

After Russ had become Snape again, Moody prepared to apparate. "Where are we going?" Snape asked, but Moody wouldn't tell.

"Just a modest property managed by a friend of mine," was all he would say.

They spun and stretched out, and landed under a tree in the gathering darkness with the full moon rising in the east. Around them extended acres of immaculate lawn and park land eerily moonlit. Snape turned to his left and found himself facing the spectacular front facade of Blenheim Palace, lights blazing at every window.

"Your friend had better not be the Duke of Marlborough," said Snape.

"You know, this isn't a shoestring operation. There is more than one building on the estate. My friend is one of the estate managers. Squib, but a good lad. That'd be him now."

A car slowed and stopped by the road a little distance away, and Moody and Snape walked quickly toward it. Moody's friend was about sixty, a chubby, cheerful little fellow named Brian. He drove them to one of the gatehouses, a two-story 'cottage' with normally three bedrooms on the upper floor. It had been magicked into a very comfortable mansion on the inside, however, complete with security guards. The guards were not there to keep people out. They were there to keep Narcissa and Draco in.

That, as it turned out, was not a difficult task. Neither Narcissa nor Draco wanted to brave the dangers of the outside world as long as they and Lucius were reasonably safe and comfortable. The surroundings were designed to make their confinement easier to bear. Moody must have called in a lot of IOUs to pull this one off.

Draco came clattering down the stairs at the first sign of visitors, then skidded to a halt when he saw who it was. "You!" he cried.

"Me!" Snape answered, then paused when he realized Draco's gaze had riveted onto the sling supporting his left arm.

"Moody said he cut yours off." Draco glanced at Moody even as he spoke.

"He did. It was more complex than yours."

"It looks… Can you… you know… use it?"

"Not very well. It got infected again last week and I needed extra medical attention. How has yours been?"

"Uh, good. Sore at first, but no real problem. It's all healed now. Can I…"

"Look at it? Of course, if you think you have the stomach for it. But we'd best wait until after I've spoken to your mother. She shouldn't see it."

"What shouldn't I see, Severus?" Narcissa was descending the staircase.

"Battle scars, fair Lady. They are not for tender eyes." He stepped forward and raised the edge of his right hand under her outstretched fingers, bringing them to his lips for the softest of kisses. They had known each other a long time.

She smiled – a sad, brave smile – and gestured toward a door. "Please, step into the drawing room. We don't entertain as we used to, but for old friends we shall bring forth our poor best. I hope you come with cheerful tidings."

Snape and Moody were not allowed to respond, however, until Narcissa had brought out tea service and small cakes. She was a fine hostess of the old school, and her guests' comfort came before her own.

"I'm pleased you've come to see us, Severus. I've wanted to thank you for taking care of Draco as you did, and seeing us to a place… out of the storm." Narcissa handed them cups and small plates as she talked. "I understand, too, that you haven't been well. I hope you've somewhat recovered your strength."

"I am doing quite well, thank you. And it was an honor to be of assistance to you."

Now that they'd settled with tea and sweets, and the inquiries into health were over, Moody began. "First, Mrs. Malfoy, we bring you news of your dear husband. He has, of course, not changed much since I last saw you. In fact, he finds Azkaban boring, and that's his major complaint. He hasn't yet resolved to his satisfaction the whole business of Draco's task and its outcome, but he has plenty of time to think about it and asks that you be patient, brave, and cautious."

"Cautious? That is new."

"Lucius feels that your present situation is safe, and your inability to escape or to communicate with the outside world is perfectly explainable to… You-Know-Who. He thinks it best you not try to alter circumstances until he's resolved his own situation."

"I understand. Thank you, Alastor."

"Severus has a matter that's puzzling him, and he wanted the benefit of your knowledge."

Narcissa looked expectantly at Snape.

"It has to do, Lady, with the diary that started this whole unpleasant business. The one the Dark Lord gave to Lucius, and that was damaged."

Narcissa sighed. "He didn't give it to Lucius. I did. And I wish now I'd never agreed to guard the foul thing. It's been the cause of the downfall of our house. Yet Bella still insists on regarding it as proof of the Dark Lord's love for her, that he gave it into her keeping."

"So it was first given to Bella."

"Yes. And she cherished it as if it were a part of herself, yet never spoke of it to any. It was only later that I learned of the confidence the Dark Lord had in her, that he would trust the loyalty of one so young with something he never revealed to any other. It was trust well founded, for Bella has never wavered, but after the Dark Lord left us, she was determined to find him. She knew he wasn't dead. She wanted the diary kept out of the hands of the Ministry, so she asked me to hold it. Then she was captured and sent to Azkaban, so I had to go to Lucius for advice. Bella had told me two things about the diary – that it would open the Chamber of Secrets, and that it was the key to the Dark Lord's return. I think when Lucius gave it to the Weasley girl he was hoping that somehow the Dark Lord might come back."

"How did he, the Dark Lord, discover what had happened?"

"He never inquired after it until Bella escaped from Azkaban. Then she told him that I had it, and that led him to Lucius. He was furious with both of them. Neither ever enjoyed his full confidence after that, and he punished them by playing them against each other. Lucius was always afraid that if Bella rose to the top again, he would fall. He was grateful for your support. Though now…" Narcissa looked from Snape to Moody. "Now I wonder if it was wise to trust you."

"It's never wise to trust anyone too much," responded Snape, "but I assure you, Lady, I never said or did anything that would have led Lucius to betray the Dark Lord."

"For that you have my thanks."

"Did Bella give you any instructions about safeguarding the diary?"

"She said it would be best to hide it under the ground. We put it…" Narcissa looked uncomfortable.

"We know about the vault under the floor," said Moody. "It's been searched more than once."

"Where is the diary now?" Snape asked. "I understood that it was given back to Lucius."

"It was, but I believe he returned it to the Dark Lord."

"That should have been the end, then. But it wasn't, was it? Draco's task."

"That happened so suddenly. First there were the arrests in the Ministry, but he didn't blame me or Draco for that, nor did he want to punish Lucius for anything more than poor judgment. Then all at once in July – it was the day I came to see you, for I faced him in the evening and went to you after midnight – Draco and I were summoned and Draco was given his task.

"O Severus, he was raging. He said that what Lucius had done turned out to be worse than he had realized, and that both of those who destroyed his property would be punished at the same time, and something about more missing than he had been informed of, and others would be punished, too. You see, we weren't the only ones. He was angry at that horrid little weasel-like man, Pettigrew, and he was there with us."

"Peter Pettigrew was there? And in trouble? Whatever for?"

"I don't know. I really didn't understand what the Dark Lord meant. Pettigrew had the key to some place where the Dark Lord had more property. Except the Dark Lord had only just been informed that weekend that it wasn't with him, that it was missing. And Pettigrew was in trouble for not going back and searching for it. Except why he would do that if no one knew until a few days earlier that it was missing I don't understand. But that was all I heard, because then he dismissed us. Severus, is it true that Dumbledore is dead?"

Snape looked over at Moody, who shrugged. "It is true that he fell from the tower. But both the fall and what happened afterwards are turning out to be more of a puzzle than originally thought," Snape said.

"But they had a funeral."

"There are also questions about that. And I have no answers. I only know that after a few people saw him lying on the ground that night, no one but Hagrid ever saw the body again. Dumbledore is not with us."

"It is sad. He was a large part of all our lives."

Narcissa rose then, for it was late. Snape and Moody stood when she did. "You will forgive me, gentlemen, but I have not been in the best of health, and I am weary. Draco, I know will want to speak with you, and he can see you out. Thank you so much for calling." Then she was gone.

There was a small, awkward silence until Moody finally took the hint. "I'll wait for you outside," he said, and left as well.

"Do you think he's not dead?" Draco asked.

"There are indications that he might not be, but if he is not, then he has chosen to keep it secret from everyone. Except Hagrid, and maybe Professor McGonagall. Does the thought please you?"

"You know, before you arrived up there – before the others arrived up there – he was talking to me. He said he could save me. He said he could save my mother. He told me he knew I wasn't a murderer. And he sounded like… like he really…"

"Meant it. Like he cared about you. He did. He cared about you enormously. So much, in fact, that if the choice had to be made, he was going to sacrifice me for you. And himself for both of us."

"I don't understand."

"You had a task that would make you a murderer and damage your soul. I had an Unbreakable Vow that would kill me if one of us didn't complete your task. Dumbledore said if it came to it, I was to kill him in your place, to save you. He reasoned that if I were acting unwillingly, on the orders of the victim, soul-ripping would not affect me as badly, and additionally I would be spared the consequences of the vow. I didn't entirely agree with his priorities, and we argued about it. In the end it was irrelevant."

"Irrelevant? How?"

"In the end it was neither you nor I who needed saving. It was the entire student body at Hogwarts. Death Eaters had found a way in; Greyback was planning to attack the children as soon as he finished with Dumbledore – you have cause to look sheepish, but Dumbledore knew it was not what you'd planned. The only one who had a chance of ordering Greyback out of the school was me, but only if he was convinced that I still served the Dark Lord. Dumbledore told me to pretend to kill him, but to throw him from the tower so they could not inspect his body. He would take care of the rest. My job was to get the Death Eaters out of the castle."

"You were talking to him! That's what you were doing while you were staring at him! You didn't murder him!"

"I did not murder him. I may still have killed him if he indeed died from the fall. This is why it is important for me to find out what happened. But I cast no Killing Curse that night."

"I'm glad. I hated you, you know. When you took me to that apartment, I wanted to kill you. I had just begun to think that maybe I could be saved, that Dumbledore wanted to help me, and then – bang! – you cast the Curse, and it was all over. I really wanted you dead."

"I got that impression. I apologize for knocking you out and performing minor surgery without your permission."

"You saved my life. I didn't realize it then, but I do now. By the way, could I see…"

"What is this fascination teenagers have with the gruesome and the gory? All right, once."

It was different for Draco, though, because the mutilated arm he looked at might have been his own, and to some extent he was responsible for it. "I wish there was something I could do," he said.

"I'll keep that under consideration," Snape replied, and left Draco to join Moody in apparating back to Hogwarts.

"Did you understand any of that?" Moody asked. He and Russ were sitting in the Great Hall, which was deserted at that time of night.

"Actually, yes. I was rather busy that week in July, and I believe it had something to do with the Dark Lord's behavior. That was the weekend Amelia Bones was murdered. Headquarters was pretty happy, about the bridge, about her death, but as I recall no one spoke with the Dark Lord himself. He wasn't there. Narcissa said he found out something that weekend that was connected to Horcruxes because he found out that more were missing and more destroyed than he'd realized. I know the destroyed one – Dumbledore destroyed a Horcrux on the ninth and on the eleventh Draco got his task. Both the people who destroyed Horcruxes would be punished at the same time – that's Malfoy and Dumbledore."

"What about the missing ones?"

"We know one of the missing ones. We have it. It's the locket. The thing is, none of the others are missing unless it's the sixth one, the one we haven't figured out yet. The Dark Lord knows that the diary and the ring have been destroyed. He has the wand and Ollivander, and knows the cup is in Hogwarts, but can't get to it. He must have known for years that the locket was missing. It only leaves the sixth one, the one Dumbledore thought was the last one. Why did he discover it was missing that weekend, and why was he angry with Pettigrew? And why did he kill Amelia Bones?"

"He was going to make another one! He was going to, but couldn't because… That doesn't make sense. If it'd already been made but was missing, he wouldn't have tried to make another – he'd have tried to find the missing one."

"Unless he didn't know it had been made. He may have been planning to use Potter's – Harry's – death to make the last Horcrux. The house location is still protected by the Fidelius Charm – it has to be, no one was there who could have canceled it. Pettigrew was and is the secret keeper. No one can go where the house was without Pettigrew giving them the secret. Hagrid must already have been given it, and probably Sirius, but who else?"

"But then Hagrid would've known Pettigrew was the secret keeper."

"Not if Pettigrew gave James several notes with the secret written on them. James would give one to Hagrid… Hagrid wouldn't have recognized the handwriting."

"So Voldemort takes something with him to make into a Horcrux, but gets zapped. And what you're saying is that the Horcrux got made anyway. But Harry didn't die."

"James and Lily did. Either one of their deaths would work as well, I imagine. Now he's angry that Pettigrew didn't go back to the house to find the Horcrux. Poor Peter. Blamed for not following up on something the Dark Lord probably never told him about in the first place."

"Well we can go to Godric's Hollow and find it!"

"You know, Moody, if you took up criminal investigation, you'd starve. That was more than a year ago. The Dark Lord didn't need Pettigrew. He already had the secret. He would have gone back to Godric's Hollow right away to look for his Horcrux. My guess is that he didn't find it."

"Maybe he did find it."

"No. Bones was killed on the Saturday. The ring was destroyed on the following Tuesday. By Thursday evening the Dark Lord was still in a towering fury. I'd say he went to Godric's Hollow on a fruitless hunt before the ring was destroyed. That must have been a shock. To go from one destroyed, one missing, and four available to two destroyed, two missing, one out of reach in Hogwarts, and only one available in a matter of four or five days – I can see where he might be upset."

"If I were him, I'd get one of the students to retrieve the cup from the trophy room. That way at least he'd have two."

"Two problems with that. He may not know which case it's in. Finding it could take time. Then, the only Death Eater children available are Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott. The Three Stooges. Well, the Two Stooges and the strange kid no one understands. Would you trust your Horcrux to one of them?"

"You have a point. Well, two are destroyed, he has one, and we have two. But what about the last one?"

"Either the thing he took to become the Horcrux wasn't there, or in the chaos something else became the Horcrux. Something he didn't intend and couldn't recognize."

"We can go to Godric's Hollow and search."

"We couldn't find the location. We don't have the secret. And I can pretty much guarantee Pettigrew won't give it to us."

Moody smiled. "What about taking Hagrid and having him search for it?"

xxxxxxxxxx

_Tuesday, September 16, 1997_

The next afternoon, during his free time after Charms class, Russ went down the hill and started towards the Whomping Willow. He hadn't gotten within twenty-five feet of the branches before he heard a voice behind him.

"Hey, there! Where do you think you're going?"

Turning, Russ saw Hagrid running up behind him. When the hulking grounds keeper was in range, Russ answered, "I was going to see the tree, Professor. The others said it would be interesting."

"Interesting my eyeballs. They was pulling your leg, lad. That tree 'll whomp ya into next Sunday. That's why it's called the Whomping Willow. Who told ya t' come look at it?"

"I take it this is some sort of initiation. Let's just say then that it was a couple of my house mates, and leave it at that."

Hagrid contemplated the boy in front of him for a moment. "That's sporting of you. There's some 'd report their mates and claim damages if the Willow whomped 'em."

"What possible use would I have for damages? Haven't you heard? I'm made of money. Or at least my mother is."

"I'd 'eard. I'd 'eard. And there's those with money who'd sell their grandfather for a few more knuts. I'm glad you're not one of 'em lad. I'm glad."

The two regarded each other. "May I ask you something?" Russ said.

"You go right ahead."

"Some of the students said they weren't sure if you would be teaching this year."

"Why wouldn't I be teaching this year?"

"Well… it's… they said it's the death of the old headmaster. They said you couldn't live here at Hogwarts without him."

"Well, I went away, and that's true enough. But that don't mean I can't come back and teach. I mean, I went away, but it was for other reasons."

"I understand that the death of the headmaster was horrible."

"That may be, but it's done. What's done is done, and let there be an end on it."

"Yet you were charged with the greatest responsibility. I mean, you had care of the body, and the funeral arrangements, and everything."

"Well, you know, that's my job. I mean, when it come to notifying the centaurs and seeing the area was clear, and… and, well, everything… Well, that's my job. But the chairs and all, that was done by magic."

"How many people were there? At the funeral, I mean."

"Now, I don't know. Professor McGonagall, well she'd know. Why're you so interested?"

Russ looked down at the ground. "It's just that everyone else was there. They all had a chance to… I mean, they all have the same experience to share. Even some of the first years came with their parents. I'm the only one who didn't…"

"Well it ain't like you knew him, now is it? Still, it's things like that make a lad feel left out. Do you want t' come down now and see the tomb?

"I don't know… I'm not…"

"Come on, lad. I'll show you around. It's a quiet and a peaceful place. You'll like it."

Together the two walked down to the lakeside where Dumbledore's tomb stood at the edge of the grass, not far from the water. The modest but elegant monument of white marble gleamed in the sun. Russ noticed for the first time that no words or date were carved on it.

"Now don't be asking me for a description of what happened. I was a bit upset that day and don't rightly recall."

But Russ didn't really need Hagrid's remembrance. He already had the account from the others. Looking now at the tomb and locking away the thought that Dumbledore might actually be inside, Russ thought of what a wonderful bit of transfiguration it had been, that and the charms work of the white flames and smoke.

_Dumbledore could have done it, but that would mean he was alive. Dead wizards don't do magic. McGonagall could have made the tomb, but that and the flames at the same time? Probably not alone. Flitwick could have helped. Together they could pull it off. What a marvelous way to ensure that no one could examine the body. That's why he told me to throw him from the tower, too – so they couldn't check the body._

That afternoon, Athena carried another message to Moody: Get a pensieve memory from Draco. I want to know what Dumbledore said to him on the Tower. By supper time, a much larger owl brought a somewhat heavy package that Russ did not unwrap until he'd returned to his tiny room.

It was a small pensieve and a little vial of white smoke.

More than an hour later, Russ sat quietly on his bed trying to put everything into order. The conversation between Dumbledore and Draco had been far more enlightening than he'd dared hope.

_He was talking to both of them. He was talking to Draco, and he was talking to Potter… to Harry._

The first and most important message to Harry was that Draco was not a killer. His attempts to kill Dumbledore had been 'feeble,' his heart had not been in it, he had acted through fear. Dumbledore wanted to be sure that Harry didn't pursue Draco after Dumbledore was gone. He was protecting Draco from Harry.

Next, he'd made sure Harry knew how the cursed necklace, the poisoned mead, and the Death Eaters got into the castle. The vanishing cabinet could be broken again, and Madame Rosmerta's Imperius curse could be lifted – the school and the tavern keeper both protected.

Then there was the message about dying, the message that applied to Draco and Narcissa, but also to Emmeline Vance and maybe to Dumbledore himself. 'He cannot kill you if you are already dead… we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine.' Even the information that Dumbledore was still in control was passed on – 'It is my mercy that matters now.'

Why would Dumbledore keep Harry in the dark about what was happening? What Dumbledore told Draco applied equally to Harry – 'I did not dare speak to you… in case he used Legilimency against you.' And it could apply to Harry's friends, too.

Finally, there was a message about Snape, about himself, that was meant for Harry as well as for Draco. 'Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on my orders… It so happens that I trust Professor Snape… Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe… Severus, please.' _Yaxley understood the last words to be a signal that whatever action I took was being done on Dumbledore's orders. Maybe Hermione was right –Harry was meant to understand the same thing._

xxxxxxxxxx

_Wednesday, September 17, 1997_

"Where did you go yesterday after supper?" Ron asked after breakfast. "We were kind of hoping to hear about your conversation with Hagrid."

"Moody sent me some things to look at. It took a while." _And I can't tell you what I learned any more than I could tell Harry. For the same reason, and on Dumbledore's orders. Right now the Dark Lord is moving cautiously, not wanting to imperil the Horcruxes that are left. All it takes is one person to pass on to him the information that Dumbledore might still be alive, and his reason for caution is gone. He'll move quickly and violently to pick up the one he can locate – here in Hogwarts._

"So, what did Hagrid say?"

"Not much. He showed me the tomb and said he didn't remember much about the funeral because he was so upset. That's all. It wasn't a good time to ask him anything more. By the way, Neville, did you get the herbs Monday night?"

Neville looked up from his Charms homework – he had Charms the next hour – and nodded. "I took them up to Professor Lupin this morning. He looks pretty good, kind of well-rested. He said he'd set them aside for you."

"Is he teaching today?"

"Should be. It looks like the potion's having a good effect on him."

The students went off to classes, but since Russ didn't have any on Wednesday mornings, he went up to speak to McGonagall.

"Dumbledore's alive, isn't he?" Snape said after McGonagall had poured him a glass of wine, he having taken a short-term pill earlier and turned into himself in McGonagall's office.

"Now Severus, I don't know what would give you that idea."

"Let's see, where shall I begin? A promise made on the top of a tower, the odd behavior of the phoenix in the night, a portrait that never wakes up, a headmistress who shirks her responsibilities at a funeral, a curiously calm but reticent grounds keeper… Do stop me when you've heard enough."

"Oh, dear. Severus, have you mentioned any of this to the children?"

Snape looked meditatively at his wineglass. "We talked about the peculiarity of some of the events of that night – the phoenix, Hagrid's actions – and about your silence at the funeral, but that was before I heard Professor Dumbledore's instructions."

"Albus gave you instructions? When? How?"

"He talked to Draco for a long time on the tower. Much of it was intended for more people than Draco. He was concerned that the Dark Lord might learn things through legilimency. Now that I've found out about it, I can't share everything I learn with my fr… with the others."

"Your friends? Why, Severus, whatever is this polyjuice doing to you?"

"I wish I knew. Sometimes I have trouble figuring out who I am. It's strange being fifteen again. Like I had another chance at life."

"Don't get too used to it. You still have a contract to teach at Hogwarts, and we're holding you to it as soon as this business is over. But what if I had ill news for you?"

Snape froze, the tone of McGonagall's voice conveying as much as the words. After a moment he echoed her. "Ill news?"

"Severus, what if I told you that Albus Dumbledore was dead. That I myself sealed him in that tomb, with a little help from Professor Flitwick."

"Why?"

"Well clearly, Severus, because that is what one does when someone is dead."

Snape looked away from McGonagall – at the walls, the fireplace, Dumbledore's strange contraptions – and realized in an odd, detached sort of way that he was not shutting down. Had he known from the beginning, when they had to sedate him? And yet the clues had seemed to point so unerringly to a renewal of hope that this was doubly disappointing.

"No, I don't mean…" Snape paused. "Well, yes I do. Why lock his body in the tomb so suddenly, when no one was prepared for it to happen, without allowing anyone to see him? The students tell me that everyone was waiting for more speeches, and then without warning it was over. Why didn't you speak at the funeral? Why does Hagrid defend me to the children? Why didn't Fawkes start to sing until at least half an hour after Dumbledore's death? Why isn't the portrait speaking?"

McGonagall glanced up at the slumbering headmaster. "I really don't know. I suppose I should inquire. Do you know where else there are portraits of him on display?"

Snape shook his head. "Just on Chocolate Frog cards," he said, then he sighed. "I should take a pill and be going now. They'll miss me at lunch otherwise. You know, I could learn to like this new life." He rose to go, then stopped. "No," he said, facing McGonagall directly. "I still can't believe you would fail to do your duty as acting headmistress if he was really dead. There's no excuse for your not speaking at his funeral. Dumbledore isn't dead."

"How can I convince you?" McGonagall asked sadly.

"Let me see your memory of that day. Let me read you."

"Laddie… I canna do that. I canna have ye traipsing around in my brain."

"I wouldn't look at any other memory. Just that one…" Snape paused, for McGonagall had lapsed into a burr and looked decidedly uneasy. He searched his recent memory, challenging her. "What if I had ill news for you… What if I told you… He was dying, but my guess is he never quite died. Verb tenses are marvelous things, Minerva. They can make a thing appear true when it isn't. Is the reason you don't want me to read you because the memory is different from what you just told me? A simple yes or no question… Is Albus Dumbledore dead?"

McGonagall laughed. "Sit down, Severus. I told them ye'd not take the story easily. Ye're worse than a bulldog with a bone or a bloodhound on a trail. Ye'll ne'er let go 'til every 't' is crossed and every 'i' dotted. And every question answered. Ye have a way of putting yerself into dangerous situations, ye know. We're all quite tickled that Alastor found a way to hide ye that none of us had thought about – 'Russ'. Though it was a mite irritating that he tried to fool us about it. That was quite an act the two of ye put on."

Snape sat now, picking up the wine glass and watching McGonagall carefully. "Cute," he commented after a moment. "In all that speech, there still wasn't a simple yes or no."

"Truth? I can't answer all yer questions, but some I can. Hagrid defends ye for the same reason that Fawkes sang when he did. Albus wasn't dead when he fell from the tower, and the fall didn't kill him. Poor Fawkes. There was no external injury for him to weep over, and so he called Hagrid from his hut. By then you and the Death Eaters were heading down the hill, and Hagrid had to fight them, and the fire…"

"What did happen to Dumbledore?"

"We didn't know what was affecting him. Hagrid sent for me, but Poppy was caring for Bill Weasley, and her presence would have let the cat out of the bag in any case. Albus was drifting in and out of consciousness all night. I tried to get Harry to tell me where Albus had gone that night, and what he'd done, but Harry refused to talk to anyone. He insisted over and over that ye'd murdered Albus with a Killing Curse. By then we were aware of the scene on the tower, and that Alastor had gone looking for ye, and it didn't take a genius to work out that ye could be in terrible trouble if the truth became known . We were afeared for ye. Ye might come into contact with You-Know-Who, where any hint that yer curse hadn't killed Dumbledore would be yer death sentence. It might still come to happen."

Swirling the wine in the glass, Snape contemplated its spiral pattern. "Sentence has already been passed," he said quietly. "I disobeyed the Dark Lord, performed Draco's task for him, and deprived the Dark Lord of his vengeance. Then I tried to run away and even attempted to remove the Dark Mark. I don't think that knowing I didn't really kill Dumbledore on the tower is going to change much except drag my death out longer. Don't worry. There'll be no contact. I'd kill myself first."

"What if ye were Russell Moody when ye stood before him?"

The motion of the glass stopped, and the swirling spiral slowed. "It never occurred to me before," Snape said with feigned sarcasm, "how much you've hated me all these years."

"Hated ye? Whatever do ye mean by that?"

Snape laughed wryly. "Do you know what it sounded like just then? It sounded like you want me to confront the Dark Lord, as long as I do it with the protection of Dumbledore's murder to shield me. The Moody guise is out, though. I can fool you with a tale concocted from books and photographs, but I can't fool a legilimens. I've no memories that would belong to Russell Moody. I've never been to San Francisco. I've never been in a muggle high school. He'd look into my brain and know I was lying."

"A gift I wouldna mind having, now that ye mention it. All right, then, we're all agreed we can't have ye going after Voldemort himself. What could ye do? Assuming ye wanted to do something."

"Dumbledore had me researching some things in medieval history and occult symbolism. I can put together what I was working on with what he told Potter. He believed that the Dark Lord had made six Horcruxes. Two have already been destroyed, and we think we have two more in our grasp. Two remain to be found. I can help with that, though the Dark Lord probably already has one in his hands. And the students have asked me to teach them some self defense techniques."

McGonagall raised a eyebrow, but said nothing. Only her mouth pursed tightly into a little circle. Snape narrowed his eyes.

"I'll have you know that was one of my jobs. Teaching self defense."

"I'm sure it was, dear. Now, I should like to let the other members of the Order know that ye're available for consultation…"

"I don't know if I like that idea. If too many people know who and where I am, the chances that the Dark Lord will find out increase. Besides, I'm sure Moody will object."

"Do ye think ye still have to obey Alastor?"

"He saved my life. He nursed me back to health. He figured out how to let me be a part of things again. He's got my wand and two of my memories. What have you done for me recently? Besides obstinately refuse to answer the one important question." Bitterness was rising in Snape again. "He is dead, isn't he? If I'd known, if he'd told me the truth…"

"What? What would ye have done? Tried to heal him right there, or tried to fight yer way out? Then ye would have died, Harry might have died, and Dumbledore… would be no different than he is now. And I might be dead. And who knows how many students. There would have been no way to stop more Death Eaters coming through the cabinet, and Hogwarts would have been overrun. Ye have to face it, Severus. At that moment, in that situation, ye didn't have a choice."

"Most of the situations I get myself into seem to lack the element of choice. You'd think I'd be used to it by now."

McGonagall fidgeted nervously. "I'll have to ask ye to trust me for a bit, Severus. About yer question, I mean. I really must consult with the others before…"

"Before you'll trust me. Tell me, whatever the truth is, does Lupin know?"

"Yes. 'T was Remus tracked down Alastor and found out that ye were still alive and safe from Voldemort. We might ha' told him, but Alastor is like Harry. He doesna want to lose control of his secrets. Remus had to force him to get medicine for ye. Emmeline was told later, after Alastor came out of hiding and invited members of the Order to see ye and yer pensieve memories. That was when we finally learned what Albus had done – about the potion he drank in the cave…"

Snape just waited. McGonagall was caving in.

"I canna do this to ye, Severus. Ye've borne too much. Albus is alive. He's still verra, verra sick, but he's alive."

"And Lupin has known all this time."

"Yes. And Poppy, Filius, Pomona, Tonks, and Madame Maxime. And some people overseas. But only a few others in the Order have been brought into it."

"Madame Maxime? Why her?"

"How do ye think Albus got out of Hogwarts? He left with Madame Maxime in her carriage. He really was dying, Severus. He was comatose by then, and we weren't sure we could hold on to him. She took him to people in France who kept his condition stable, since there was nowhere in Britain he could go without alerting You-Know-Who. Now that they have some information about the poison and can treat him, Albus is showing improvement. It really was for ye and Draco, ye know. Albus insists he has to remain 'dead.' He's watching out for several people whose lives are potentially in danger, and ye're number one on the list. Far ahead of anyone else by a long way. Now, are ye going to tell Alastor?"

"I don't think so. Moody's a strange bird. Unpredictable, and full of odd ideas. I can see where Professor Dumbledore might not want him in on the secret." Snape frowned slightly. "I have a new question. How did the portrait get here?"

McGonagall laughed. "Albus was sick, but he still had his wits about him. The first thing he did when he woke the first time, after Hagrid calmed down a bit, was insist I be brought to the hut so he could resign. The moment he officially quit, he became an ex-headmaster with a portrait in the office. He knew that if there was no portrait it would be impossible to maintain the fiction."

"It was that simple? You can't imagine how depressing the presence of that portrait was, and it didn't mean anything. What's he planning to do?"

"Diplomacy. There are a select few in other countries who now know that he's alive, and he's trying to coordinate negotiations with giants, werewolves, goblins, anyone who can help us against You-Know-Who. It'll be difficult for him to have to work clandestinely, but he'll be busy as soon as the doctors let him get up. I'll have to tell him that ye've figured out the secret, too. Ye may regret it."

"How so?"

"He'll be giving ye work to do. Better ye than me."

"You could let him know, then, that we believe we've got two of the six things he was looking for, and we think the Dark Lord has the fifth. We still don't know what or where the sixth one is."

"I ask no questions. I desire no details. I presume Albus will understand what ye're talking about."

"I think so. I should take a pill and be going now. They'd miss me at lunch otherwise. I could learn to like this new life."

"Don't get too comfortable. There are several of us here who miss ye and your pranks, and we'd peach on ye so fast…"

"Pranks? Moi?"

"I'd even hire Lockhart again just to lure ye back. Now go to lunch."

xxxxxxxxxx


	8. Chapter 8 – A Full Team

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: A Full Team**

_Friday, September 19, 1997_

The next day and a half passed uneventfully. The only notable achievement for Russ was that Thursday afternoon's Flying class went much better than he expected. Apparently the physical coordination of his current fifteen-year-old body was considerably better than that of his first eleven-year-old one. While he would never be a Quidditch player, he would be able to use a broom competently at need. Russ was pleased.

Friday started oddly. As Russ stepped through the Ravenclaw picture onto the seventh floor of the castle, he noted Ron leaning against the wall a short distance away watching, clearly waiting for him. At Russ's appearance, Ron walked over.

"Hold your arms out," Ron ordered.

"Why?"

"I'm a prefect. Do as you're told."

Russ held his arms out, and Ron patted him down like a policeman looking for weapons. "Looks like you're clean," he said without further explanation, then went first down the stairs.

The others were waiting, loaded down with plates full of breakfast pastries, glasses of pumpkin juice, and some coffee for Russ. Instead of going into the Great Hall, they all went out to the fountain courtyard and settled onto benches that they pulled close together. Hermione was placed in the middle while the others sat around her. Russ was puzzled.

"Here," Ron said, handing Hermione a small box. "This is from me."

Hermione opened it carefully. Inside was a small silver brooch shaped like an otter with violet eyes. "Oh, Ron, it's beautiful," Hermione gushed, then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Ron smiled and blushed, and glanced at Russ in triumph.

One by one the others each gave Hermione little packages containing books, a scarf, and a necklace, all received with thanks and hugs. Only Russ was left. He smiled shyly and admitted, "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was your birthday."

"That's okay," Hermione replied with a grin. "We've known each others' birthdays for years, but there's no reason why you would know. Besides, you're here to celebrate with us, and that's what's really important."

They handed out the pastries and another box containing a small cake with eighteen candles. Raising glasses and cups in a toast, they wished Hermione a 'Happy Birthday' and fell to eating with good cheer. Ron, especially, seemed content with the morning.

_Of course. If I'd really been a teenage boy interested in Hermione, I'd probably have found out what day her birthday was and been sure to get her something nice. No wonder Ron's so pleased._

The breakfast party was cut short by the call of classes and, wishing Hermione the best for the day, the group split and went to their dormitories for books and homework.

That afternoon, in the break between Herbology and Potions, Russ saw Hermione looking for him. He raised his hand and waved slightly, and when she saw him, she came over.

"I know a birthday present you can give me," she said without preamble.

"I'm not sure it would be appropriate. We have to remember who we are."

"Not that kind of a present. Something the others, especially Ron, would never know about. Something that can't be seen or touched. Something that is appropriate, especially now."

"You intrigue me. I reserve judgment, however, until you tell me what it is."

"Teach me occlumency."

"Why?"

"You've learned something, but you won't tell us. We were all part of the secrets, privy to the information, and now we're shut out. I think it's because you or Mr. Moody or Professor Lupin doesn't trust us to keep a secret. I can keep secrets from almost anyone, and if I learn occlumency I'll be able to keep them from everyone."

"Why?"

"Harry's my friend. Right now he thinks he doesn't need help, but he will. Maybe soon. I can't help him if I don't know what's going on."

"No, Miss Granger. I don't think it would be wise. You might be hurt."

"You once had a friend in danger that you wanted to help, and you didn't worry about being hurt. Teach me occlumency."

"We have no place to meet," Russ countered.

"Down by the lake shore. It's almost impossible to be seen there. I checked."

"Absolutely not. I used to meet someone else there, and you're very much like her. It's out of the question."

"What if I brought a chaperone?"

"You're an astute young lady. But I don't think you could learn occlumency with Ron there."

"I wasn't thinking of Ron. I guarantee you'll approve of the one I bring. If not, it's off and we both leave."

"Who are you thinking of?"

"I haven't decided yet. But I'll bring someone, and you'll agree or it won't happen."

"By the lake then. When?"

"Early tomorrow morning. Before breakfast. Ron always sleeps late on Saturdays."

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_Saturday, September 20, 1997_

Around dawn, Russ made his way from the castle down the side of the cliff to the lake shore. He waited there in the chill morning air for about fifteen minutes, and then saw two figures appear at the cliff top and start down. It took only a few seconds for him to realize that it was Hermione and Neville. _She was a hundred percent correct. A perfect chaperone. I may end up teaching both of them._

It turned out that was the idea. Neville was keen to learn occlumency, too, and Russ was to find that two willing pupils were much easier to teach than one reluctant one.

"I would like you to do your best," Russ started, "to not think of an elephant."

"Well I wasn't thinking of one until you mentioned it," retorted Hermione. "but now it's there."

"Exactly. That's what legilimency does. Surface legilimency accepts the thoughts that your mind is projecting anyway. A legilimency probe does what I just did. The legilimens enters your brain and elicits ideas that are already there by suggesting them and reading your response. If you had never heard of or seen an elephant before, my suggestion could not have made you think of one. Equally, if the moment I said 'elephant' you started thinking of a polar bear, I would not be able to read an elephant in your mind."

"So if you put the idea 'Harry Potter' into my head, I might start thinking of the last time I saw Harry and what he was telling me. Then you could read it."

"Exactly. There are two main types of occlumency. One, the easiest, is to simply shut off thought and not respond to a probe at all. If you're strong, you don't give away information, but the legilimens knows you're hiding something. Draco learned that type to use against me. It was effective, but would not be against the Dark Lord. Can you tell me why not?"

"Yes," said Neville. "You weren't going to force Draco to show you anything. But he'd use force. I mean, he'd know you were hiding something, so he'd just keep after you until you were too weak to keep fighting. But wasn't that what you were trying to teach Harry?"

"Yes. You see, Harry wasn't in the Dark Lord's power. He was here at Hogwarts and the Dark Lord was trying to enter his mind from a distance. There was never a question of force. As long as Harry closed his mind, he was safe. The second kind of occlumency is harder. There you substitute the ideas you want the legilimens to see for the real ones. Actually, they're both real, you just do the selecting."

"I'm not sure I understand," said Hermione.

"You can't fabricate nonexistent images. But if a legilimens probes me to find out if Neville can brew potions, I can choose to show him helping me with the Polyjuice at Moody's house, or I can show one of the times when he bungled a potion disastrously. Two opposite answers that I control completely. If I do it right, the legilimens never finds out that I'm being selective."

"Is that what you do?"

"Miss Granger, I can't teach you to do what I do. I'm not even sure what I do. I was born doing it. It's instinctive. I can teach you the two forms I described. Whether or not you can do them effectively depends on your own talents and strength of will. The first kind is the easiest. Shall we start with it?

"When Harry was learning this, it was important that he try to shut down completely. To get him to do that, I tried to access memories that he particularly would not want me to see. Embarrassing moments. Unfortunately, it didn't work. He never could shut anything out. Instead he used external spells to fight back. You need to work on shutting down your minds. First, let me show you what it feels like. I don't want to probe too much, so you just look out at the lake and concentrate on what you see."

Russ stood where he could see their eyes, and after a moment, he asked, "What did you feel?"

"Nothing," said Hermione as Neville shook his head. "You mean you could tell what we were thinking?"

"You were looking at the trees on the shore and thinking how nice it will be when the birds come back. Neville was thinking about how deep the water is and the merpeople who live there."

"That's scary. Anyone can just tell what I'm thinking?"

"No, not anyone. First, not everyone has the legilimency ability. Some can't do it at all, some have to speak the spell, nearly everyone has to be looking into your eyes. Even Dumbledore and the Dark Lord always looked into my eyes for good legilimency, and they're the best I know. But that was just picking up surface thoughts. You have complete control over your surface thoughts. Now I want you to think about the lake, only the lake, and I'm going to probe for something about Hogwarts, but I won't tell you what it is."

Another moment passed, and then Neville said, "You wanted to know about Professor Lupin and the Dark Arts class."

"Me, too," said Hermione.

"See, you can feel it. If you didn't know what it was, you might think the idea just popped into your head. It's that subtle. But if you know what it feels like, you know someone's probing. Now, look at the lake. I'll search for something else. When you feel the probe, concentrate harder on the lake."

This time Russ looked for images of the little birthday party from the day before. Hermione shut him out at once. Neville struggled with it, but was able to overlay the party images with lake images, making it harder to read them.

"Excellent. Very well done. I want to do one more thing. This time I'm going to hit you with a strong probe, a milder version of what the Dark Lord would use. I'll be looking for something unpleasant and emotional – emotions make it harder to control your thoughts. You try to divert me to something else. Hermione first."

It was the day more than two years earlier when Draco made her teeth grow, and Snape had said that he saw no difference. As the first image surfaced, Russ felt Hermione's shock, and when she tried to push the thought down, he presented her with her own memory to elicit further images. Shock changed to shame and embarrassment, and then to anger as Hermione relived the moment. Then Russ broke off the contact.

"You louse!" Hermione yelled at him. "You rat! You had no right to treat me like that!"

"You see. Emotions. I hit your emotions, and you gave me the whole scene. And the angrier you got, the easier it was for me to draw you out. Neville next."

The shaken Hermione watched as Russ turned to Neville. This was even easier, and he chose the first time Neville had botched a potion in his very first Potions class. Again he got shock, shame, and resentment – and the entire scene.

"That's not fair," Neville muttered when Russ was done.

"Do you think the Dark Lord plays fair? If you go up against him, he'll use more than mind probes. If he realizes you're hiding something, he'll use pain to break through your defenses. It's much easier just to give him what he wants."

"Did he do that to you?" Neville whispered.

"Yes. More than once." Russ didn't elaborate, and the two students didn't ask for more detail. Instead Russ gave them homework.

"What you do now is practice. Take the worst memories you have, the ones that make you feel angry, ashamed, frightened, and try to examine them without emotion. Try to remove all emotion from your mind, and see those memories calmly, dispassionately, as if they had nothing to do with you. Also, try using one thought to replace another. If you start to think of something unpleasant, for example, try replacing the thought with something pleasant. The key is control."

They left the lake shore and walked up to the Great Hall for Saturday breakfast. Hermione and Neville were both very quiet, but Ron and Ginny just assumed their silence at the breakfast table meant they were still sleepy. The occlumency lessons were not mentioned.

The next couple of weeks were, on the average, incredibly boring. McGonagall adamantly refused to give Russ permission to speak to Hagrid about either his own identity or the whereabouts of Dumbledore, which made it nearly impossible to come up with a reason to go with Hagrid to Godric's Hollow. Moody was getting impatient, and Athena was kept busy ferrying a stream of messages back and forth with Moody accusing Russ of intentionally dragging his heels, while Russ pointed out that Moody had an unrealistic grasp of the situation.

Quidditch tryouts were held at the end of September, and in the absence of Harry, Ron was Quidditch captain for Gryffindor. He kept his old position as Keeper and Ginny was once again Seeker. Both became very busy in the evenings with Quidditch practice.

Hermione and Neville decided that Quidditch evenings were the best time for occlumency lessons. They brought Luna with them to the third lesson, and she turned out to be the most accomplished occlumens of the class. Even Neville was now getting to the point where he could stop thinking about something at will. _Why was it so hard with Harry?_

xxxxxxxxxx

_Wednesday, October 8, 1997_

Russ went up to Professor Lupin's office right after Flying class that afternoon. He was feeling quite pleased with himself because the class had gone out over the lake to work on updrafts and downdrafts, and he'd raced back to the castle afterwards against Brutus Prendergast and managed to stay neck and neck with him all the way in. Brooms were a lot easier than he'd thought.

Neville was already in the Dark Arts office finishing off the first of this month's batches of Wolfsbane potion. It was a week before the full moon, and Professor Lupin needed to start his medication that evening.

"Looks good," Russ said, stopping to sniff the brew and give it a stir. "Did you adjust the vervain?"

"Not as much as you suggested. I increased it a little, but it started to look funny, so I stopped."

"Funny how?"

"Little wisps of yellow on the surface."

"I wonder what that was. Good that you stopped. You can always put more in if you have to, but once it's in, you can't take it out again." Russ left a note for Lupin telling him there'd been a minor adjustment in the vervain and to send for him at once if Lupin noticed any problems. Then he turned to Neville. "Lessons this evening?"

"Yes. I've been practicing the time Hermione cast a Petrificus Totalus on me so that if you ask about Harry, I can show the three of them leaving me on the floor."

"Good one. It shows you have reason to dislike Harry and his friends. Makes it less likely that you're in on their activities."

The two headed down to the Great Hall where Neville left Russ to go to the Gryffindor table on the far side. Luna was sitting at the corner of the Ravenclaw table, one seat in from the end. Russ took the last seat. They'd arranged this so that Eledora couldn't sit next to him, something she still tried from time to time. Russ was hoping she'd give up soon, though he was worried that she was beginning to regard him as a challenge.

After dinner, Ron and Hermione had a brief and rather tense conversation before Ron and Ginny headed to the Quidditch pitch for practice. "What was that about?" Russ asked Hermione after Ron left.

"He wants me to come watch them. He doesn't like me being somewhere else when he's practicing. I told him Quidditch practice was boring. I think he's jealous."

"Jealous of what?"

"Whom. You. He's got this idea we're sneaking off together."

"In a way we are, but not in the way he thinks."

By the lakeside, Russ worked with each of his students individually for a few minutes. They were rehearsing what they would think of if probed about Harry. Luna had run into a snag. "I don't have any bad memories of Harry," she said.

"How about of students in general, Gryffindor in particular, and Harry part of the crowd."

"Maybe I can do that."

Russ worked next with Hermione. She was constructing a collage of rapid images of times when she and Harry had argued. Russ was standing inches from her with close eye contact, getting picture after picture of hostility and disagreement when an enraged voice bellowed from the shore beyond the cliff.

"This is what you do when my back's turned! You stand away from her, you ruddy turd! I'm gonna clobber you!" Ron was running towards the two of them, wand drawn.

Russ stepped away from Hermione immediately, his own wand now in his hand. "You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you, Weasley," he said calmly. "I thought you'd had quite enough the first time you took me on."

"Ron!" Hermione screamed. "What are you doing! Don't be an idiot!"

"You keep out of this, 'Mione. You've done enough already. Nobody snogs my girlfriend behind my back! _Stupefy!"_ A bolt of red light shot towards Russ.

"_Protego,"_ Russ responded lazily, turning slightly so that his shield charm deflected the bolt out over the lake, where it dissipated. "Try again, Weasley."

"_Everto Inimicus!"_ Another red bolt streaked through the air.

"_Defendo."_ The blasting curse was stopped. Russ's next one was nonverbal – Petra. A small stone rose from the narrow beach and hit Ron in the left shoulder.

Ron spun quickly. "What was that?" he yelled.

"An old friend," Russ replied, as from the side Hermione cried, _"Locomotor Mortis!"_ and froze Ron where he stood, unable to move his legs.

Russ strode forward and deftly removed Ron's wand from his hand. "You will now kindly explain to all of us what the hell that was about."

"All of us?" Ron looked around and, for the first time, noticed that Neville and Luna were there watching him with considerable interest and some amusement. He had no chance to say anything, however, since Hermione beat him to it.

"Snogging? Snogging! You evil, twisted little hedgehog! Where did you get the idea that everything in the world revolves around or is directed at you? We're having lessons!"

"Then what were you standing so close to him for? It looked like you were snogging!"

"What a crude word," Russ commented. "Whatever does the foul-sounding thing mean?"

"Kissing!" chorused Luna and Neville.

"Kissing? What would I kiss her for?" Almost immediately Russ realized his mistake as an infuriated Hermione swung around on him.

"You're a toad, too, you know," she snapped, and stomped off.

"_Liberacorpus,"_ Russ said to Ron, and walked after Hermione as Ron fell forward onto the grass. "I didn't mean it. Well, I did mean it, but not that way. You're a lovely girl, but you're eighteen and I'm…"

"Almost sixteen!"

"Thirty-seven!"

Hermione stopped and stared at him for a moment. Then she blushed and giggled a little. "That's right. You're Professor Snape. What would you be kissing me for?"

"Or you me? This is really not a match made in heaven, you know."

"Definitely not heaven." Hermione walked past him to where Ron sat on the grass. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm fine. What were you doing?"

"Professor Snape," Hermione said the name carefully, "was teaching us occlumency. That's why he was looking into my eyes. He was trying to read my thoughts, and I was trying to stop him."

"Oh. Why didn't you say so?"

"You didn't really give me time."

"Guess not. Can I have my wand back?"

"Here," Russ said, extending the wand for Ron to take. "Next time you attack me with it I'll shatter it into little splinters."

"Right."

"Well," said Russ. "It looks like this lesson is over."

They walked up the hill together, none of them saying very much. On arriving in the entrance hall they noticed that a group of students had clustered around the notice board. Ginny saw them and ran over.

"Great news. They've decided we can have a Hogsmeade excursion on Saturday. This Saturday! I'm sending an owl to Harry right now. We can see him on Saturday!"

Saturday morning, well over half of the student body of Hogwarts was preparing to go into Hogsmeade. Only the first and second years, and a handful of each of the other classes, were staying behind. Russ stayed at the Ravenclaw table after most of his housemates had left, reading a classic mystery about a murder on a train.

"You'd better get ready," Ginny said, walking over from the Gryffindor table. "We'll be leaving before too long."

"I'm not going."

"Not going into Hogsmeade? Are you sick? Do you have a fever or something?"

"What's to do in Hogsmeade? I don't want candy or tricks or butterbeers. Better to stay here where it'll be quiet and peaceful for once."

"Coward."

"That's a bit harsh for someone who just wants to relax."

"You're afraid of Harry."

"I have never. In my life. Been afraid. Of Harry."

"You don't want to face him. You haven't got the nerve."

"Goad all you want to. I'm impervious. And I'm not going."

At midmorning the school emptied down the hill. Russ watched them go with some satisfaction. He really did appreciate the quieter atmosphere. Later that afternoon in the Ravenclaw common room, he'd reached the point where a handkerchief embroidered with an H was found – _Wait a minute, I learned Russian letters when Apollo-Soyuz went up. A Russian N looks like an English H…_ – when he realized Luna had stepped through the picture entrance.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine, but you have to go to Hogsmeade."

"Why?"

"Harry says so."

"Why would Harry know about me?"

"Finch-Fletchley from Hufflepuff saw him and went over to say hello. During the conversation he mentioned that Mr. Moody's nephew Russell was studying at Hogwarts this year. Harry kept quiet until he left, but then he told us to get you down there to talk to him."

"Drat! And if I don't go?"

"He's going to tell everybody who you are. He says he'll make double sure You-Know-Who finds out."

"It looks like I don't have a lot of choice."

The meeting was at the Hogs Head rather than the Three Broomsticks. Russ followed Luna in and together they approached a corner table where Harry was sitting with Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Neville. Harry looked thin, tired, and cynical. He said nothing about sitting, so Russ remained standing, and Luna at his side did the same. She was carrying a heavy bag that Russ had given her.

"So, you came back to Hogwarts. The scene of the crime." Harry was pretending to lounge back in his chair.

"I don't have to bandy words with you."

"I think you do. I think you're in more trouble than any other human being I know. One word to either side, and what happens to you?"

"So you're my master now."

"Looks like it."

"I have too many masters, and they keep giving me contradictory orders."

"Let's see. Number One is Voldemort."

"Not any more. Number One is Moody. Number Two is McGonagall. Now you're Number Three. Who are you going to tell me to disobey, Moody or McGonagall? Or both?"

"Why are you at Hogwarts?" Harry demanded.

"Ah, you see? Both."

"I know about the Horcruxes you've found."

"Then you don't need me."

"You'd do better to cooperate."

"You'd do better to follow Dumbledore's instructions."

There was a long silence while Harry made an effort to control himself. "You have a lot of nerve talking to me of Professor Dumbledore."

"Do you even understand what Dumbledore's instructions were? You heard them. I had to get them from other sources."

"What are you talking about?"

"Draco. He let me have his memory of that night. Dumbledore wasn't a fool, Harry. He didn't forget about you. He knew you were there. He was speaking to Draco, but he was also talking to you."

There was another long silence. Russ could tell that this was an angle that Harry hadn't considered in depth before. "Where's Draco's memory?" Harry asked.

"Why do you need it? Your memory would be the same. Pensieve memories are objective, but then you know that. You've seen them before."

"You shouldn't leave them around for people to find."

"With most people it wouldn't be a problem."

"I want to see Draco's memory."

"Not here. Get a private chamber."

It was easily done. A word and a little money to the barkeep, and the group was soon upstairs in a private room with a fire crackling on the hearth. Russ nodded to Luna, and she pulled the small pensieve out of the bag she'd been holding.

Russ took the vial from his pocket. "Draco's memory," he said. He poured the memory into the pensieve, and it formed a little silver pool. "I suggest you look at it several times. I did. It took me three or four to catch everything."

Harry did as Russ suggested. Over and over he watched the pensieve memory, the memory that showed the tower scene from an angle different from Harry's own perspective. After a while he stopped and looked at Russ.

"He wasn't looking at you when he said 'please.' Who was he looking at?"

"The fourth Death Eater. The one he didn't greet. His name's Yaxley, and he works for Moody. He's a spy. Like me. The others have met him."

Harry looked over at Ron. "True?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ron replied.

"Question for you, Hotshot. Is killing harder than the innocent believe?"

"I don't know. I've never killed anyone."

"You killed him."

"I obeyed orders that night. Just like you did. You tell me, 'Hotshot.' Is it hard forcing poison down someone's throat?"

"How do you know about that?"

"Dumbledore transmitted the memory via legilimency. I don't have it now, Moody does. In a little glass vial. But the others have seen that one, too."

Ginny nodded. "It was you and Dumbledore in the cave with the lake full of Inferi. You made him drink that green liquid."

Harry gazed speculatively at Russ. "What else did Professor Dumbledore tell you that night that Moody has in a glass vial? That the others have already seen?"

Hermione took up the tale. "There was another pensieve memory. Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape communicated mentally. Professor Dumbledore was afraid the Death Eaters would attack the students sleeping in the dormitories. Only Professor Snape could get them to leave, but only if they thought he was loyal to… Voldemort. He told Professor Snape to throw him from the tower so they couldn't inspect his body. The spell was the Levicorpus spell. We're not a hundred percent certain what happened to Professor Dumbledore after that."

The others looked at each other and nodded agreement.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Harry insisted.

"It was a bit difficult getting you to sit down and listen to anything," countered Russ.

"Now I'm listening. You're going to tell me everything you know."

"No, I'm not."

"I don't think you understand your position."

"I understand it very well. I told you. I have three masters. Two of them have told me to withhold information from you."

"I wouldn't pay too much attention to that. I can kill you just as fast as they can."

"Very likely, since none of you are killers. But there's something they can do that you can't."

"What's that?"

"Protect me."

Once again the two stared each other down in silence. Then Harry said, "What can you tell me?"

"That the fate of Professor Dumbledore is not clear. That you and he were talking about six Horcruxes, and we have accounted for five. And that we have two in our possession. That other people besides you are working to destroy Voldemort. That the fight against Voldemort is extending into continental Europe and may go farther before it's done. And that there is more involved than a simple one-on-one confrontation."

"Why isn't the fate of Professor Dumbledore clear?"

"I can't tell you. Ask McGonagall."

"Where are the Horcruxes?"

"I'm not telling you that either until you behave like less of a jerk. Your friends might, though."

Harry turned to the others. "Get him out of here or I may kill him. I've been patient so far, but I don't know how long I can stomach him. Get him out of here."

Russ left the tavern with Luna, and together they trudged up the hill to the castle. They'd left the pensieve and the memory vial with Harry, and Russ hoped fervently that it wasn't a mistake. By the time the two were back in the castle, dusk was beginning to lengthen across the valley, and the eaves of the forest were darkening.

Supper had already been served before the other four got back from Hogsmeade. Russ and Luna had to wait, trapped at the Ravenclaw table, until enough of the supper hour had passed so that it was not suspicious that they wanted to leave. The Gryffindor students followed them outside.

"How did it go?" Russ asked.

"Pretty good," Ginny replied. "He was interested. He wanted to learn more."

"Angry, though," said Neville. "I thought he was going to Unforgivable you."

"That's not a verb," Russ started to say, then changed his mind. _What does grammar matter? Especially since Neville's way of putting it is so graphic and instantly comprehensible?_

The next day Russ got an owl message at breakfast. Can you get out and come to Hogsmeade? I want to talk to you. It was from Harry.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Sunday, October 12, 1997_

The first thing Russ did was consult with McGonagall. "He's going to pump me for every piece of information he can get. What can I tell him?"

"Tell him that when I needed information from him, he was singularly uncooperative. Tell him if he wants the support of a team, he has to play on the team. Don't tell him about Dumbledore. All we need is for that boy's brain to be full of things we don't want You-Know-Who to know while he's out there looking for ways to meet You-Know-Who."

Russ considered this as he walked down the hill with Filch, who let him through the gate. _If this gets anymore complex, I'm going to quit. I'm losing track of who I can tell what to. I'm going to need a diagram._

Harry was outside the Hogs Head. "Don't go in," he said. "I don't want to stay here. Too many people know us. Where can we go?"

"The easiest place to disappear in is London."

"Not dressed like that."

"I'll tell you a secret. You can wear almost anything in London, and no one will notice. But I did think of that. Let's go to the woods out of town a ways."

Once there, Russ removed his school robes. He was wearing muggle clothing underneath. A wave of his wand and the robes shrank to a size that would fit in his pocket.

"That's not your wand. Where'd you get the wand?"

"Stole it from Ollivanders. I'll tell you about that later. Now, first stop is Lancashire. That is, if you don't mind side by side apparating with me." For a few minutes Russ was silent, letting Harry weigh the pros and cons of this move. Finally he agreed.

"Where are we going?"

"My house. Or rather, a little distance from my house. I need to check first that no one's been inside."

Russ laid a hand on Harry's shoulder, and they spun to a deserted spot on the moor outside the old mill town, then slowly approached the run-down house on the end of the row at the edge of town.

"No one. But we're not going in. Don't want any traces there just in case someone decides to check in the future. Accio wallet." The wallet flew out to him, and Russ checked its contents before putting it in his pocket. Seeing the astounded expression on Harry's face he shrugged. "You have to have money. Especially in London. Let's go."

"No. I want you to turn into yourself first. I want to talk to the real you."

"Can't oblige. We experimented with the formula, and the Polyjuice pills last twelve hours now. Besides, I want the use of my left arm, and I don't want to run into any of my old friends."

"What happened to your arm?"

"Moody got creative with a knife. I may tell you the whole story sometime, but not now. Let's see… What would be deserted at mid morning on a Sunday?"

They apparated into the men's room off the parish hall of St. Pancras Church. Inside the church, Holy Eucharist was being celebrated, but the two teenagers stepped out into the street and crossed Euston Road to the train station. There Russ slipped a plastic card into a bank machine, pushed a few buttons, and retrieved a handful of money.

"I didn't know wizards knew how to do that."

"You forget, I'm a half-blood. My dad raised me more like a muggle than a wizard. I've had an account at Barclay's since my grandmother died. Now we're going to one of my favorite places. No wizards will be there, and we can talk about anything even though we'll be surrounded by people. We just have to keep our voices down."

They took the underground from Euston Station, changed at Green Park, and got off at South Kensington. There, on the far side of Cromwell Road, was the Natural History Museum.

"Just eleven o'clock," said Russ. "That's when they open on Sundays."

Together the two boys crossed the road and entered the museum, which was already filling up with people. "Dinosaur section," Russ said, pointing. "Crowded with children, relatively noisy, and no one will pay attention to us."

They sat on a bench with squealing children dragging their parents from exhibit to exhibit all around them. "Why did you want to talk to me?" Russ asked.

"I need to know about Dumbledore first."

"Forbidden topic number one. What else did you want to talk about?"

"Who forbade it?" Harry sighed.

"McGonagall most recently. She sent you a message. If you're not part of the team, don't expect the team to back you up."

"Is there anything you can tell me, something that doesn't come from McGonagall? It's just that the whole thing seems so immense and hopeless right now."

"Didn't the others tell you?"

"They tried. It wasn't making much sense."

Russ found himself sympathizing. Harry seemed unusually tired. "What have you been doing the past couple of months?"

"I spend part of my time at Grimmauld Place and part with the Weasleys." Harry grinned ruefully. "You've certainly managed to win over Fred and George. And I've been trying to locate the other Horcruxes. You seem to have had more success. I did go to see my parents' grave and the house at Godric's Hollow. I couldn't find the house. "

"May I ask you a question?" When Harry nodded, Russ continued. "How come all the time you were at Hogwarts you never commemorated the day of your parents' death? You never did anything special on Halloween. I know, I asked."

"It never seemed real, you know, pumpkins and bats and black cats. Not like it could be connected with anything real… They said you knew my mom."

"We were friends. She started talking to me in second year, in Potions class. There were fewer half-bloods and muggle-borns at Hogwarts then. We shared a common experience. She liked fish and chips, and listening to popular music on her transistor radio. We both wanted to ride in an airplane someday, but neither of us made it."

"You called her a mudblood."

"I was angry. I thought she was telling Potter – your father – all my spell secrets. It turned out he'd gotten an invisibility cloak for Christmas, but I didn't know that."

"How'd you find out?"

"He told me." The look of surprise on Harry's face made Russ smile inwardly. "He was interested in your mum by then, but she wouldn't give him the time of day because he'd broken us up. If he wanted her to pay attention to him, he had to convince me that she hadn't betrayed me. He even showed me the cloak."

"How come you didn't want me to see that memory in the pensieve?"

"You are without a doubt the most naïve… I didn't care about you! I didn't want the Dark Lord to see the memory. If he'd seen it, he'd have known there was something between us. Then he would've wondered why I'd never shown him anything about her, and the fact I'd been concealing information for years would've come out. No offense, but in the grand scheme of things being tortured to death is important. Your feelings aren't worth a pinch of owl dung in comparison. And in the end all my precautions were in vain because you, nosy Parker that you are, went and looked at the memory anyway. Now if you do confront him face to face, you'll betray me to him the first instant he looks into your eyes."

"I wouldn't show him that."

"You've never been able to conceal anything from anyone. Compared to you, a goldfish is an adept occlumens."

"What else do you remember about my mom?"

The oddest thing at that moment was that the fifteen-year-old Russell Moody was flattered that a seventeen-year-old, and a famous one at that, actually wanted to talk to him. It was important to him that Harry think he was someone special.

"She was willing to share my interest in the Apollo moon shots. I snuck a telescope out of the Astronomy classroom – the school provided them then, students didn't have to bring their own – and we looked at the Sea of Serenity trying to get a glimpse of the Apollo 17 landing module."

"I learned a little about that in muggle school."

"Your mum watched the Apollo 11 landing live on the telly. She told me all about it. I didn't watch it, you see, because my dad couldn't afford a television set."

The boys were quiet, then Harry asked, "Why couldn't I find the house – the place where the house used to be?"

Russ regarded Harry for a moment. "I never thought before about how the Fidelius charm might work with a baby or a toddler. If you weren't present in the room when the charm was cast, then the only one who could give you the secret would be Peter. We think he left notes with James and Lily to give to their friends, but you were too young to read. I wonder if your parents could even take you back into the house once they'd carried you out, because that would be 'telling' you the secret. Of course, the charm may have applied to the yard as well, and if you never left the house or yard during that week… On the other hand, maybe one could 'carry' another person inside. I don't believe it's been tried."

"Who did know the secret?"

"Not sure. I don't think Dumbledore did, but Hagrid did. That was why Hagrid was sent to get you. He was the only one who could actually go into the house. He'd been helping James and Lily move things, so he was one of the first to get the secret. Sirius may have known if he was there when the spell was cast, but Remus hadn't been given the secret yet. He wasn't at the spell-casting, or he would have known who the secret-keeper was. Maybe the only ones who knew were your parents, Peter, Sirius, Hagrid… and of course, Voldemort."

"Could we get the secret from Hagrid?"

"He couldn't tell us. He's not the secret keeper. Only Peter could tell us, but don't hold your breath. Hagrid could go onto the property, though." Suddenly a way to get Hagrid to Godric's Hollow had occurred to Russ. And Harry was going to suggest it himself.

"I thought Hagrid said muggles were on the scene, you know, police."

"Yes and no. They'd have heard the noise and may have found some debris, but they wouldn't have seen the house itself."

Harry brightened considerably. "Then it's still there. It's all still there, just like it was."

"Probably. But you can be sure Voldemort's been back there, so don't get your hopes up that there's anything important left, at least not about Horcruxes."

"I need to talk to Hagrid. How can I get in to talk to Hagrid?"

"Let me see… Did McGonagall specifically tell me not to smuggle you onto Hogwarts' grounds…"

"You can do it, can't you? How?" Harry's voice shot up, and Russ had to motion to him to be quieter.

"Shrieking Shack. I've done it before," he replied.

"No, it's protected by too many spells. Not even Fred and George…"

"Since when have Fred and George set the standard for spell casting? Kindly remember who you're talking to! Besides, Dumbledore gave me the codes in case I needed to come and go through there."

"Today. We're going in today."

"Maybe." Russ looked around. It was a bit after noon. "Want some lunch? There's a couple of places to eat inside the museum."

Harry agreed, looking far more cheerful than he had the day before. Together they made their way past Marine Invertebrates and into the restaurant. As they passed a couple in their twenties, Russ's ears caught a conversation, and he paused to listen.

"I'm sorry I'm such bad company today, Jen, but this work thing…"

"Oh, Paul. Just because you didn't get the promotion doesn't mean anything except your boss is a fool. You're a good man and a good worker…"

Keeping his eye on the pair, Russ got Harry into line with a tray, and they both took the fish and chips. Then Russ made sure they were at a table next to Jen and Paul. "Don't say anything," he said quietly to Harry, "but can you tell where that couple is from?"

Harry listened for a moment. "Surrey," he said. "She sounds a lot like my aunt Petunia, except her voice is softer, warmer."

Russ smiled, a soft wistful smile. "That's your mum's voice. If I close my eyes, I can hear Lily."

The two didn't talk after that, but finished their lunch slowly, savoring both the food and the gentle cadences of a well-loved voice. Then they left the museum and found a sheltered spot where they could apparate back to Hogsmeade.

The Shack stood alone, fenced off from the rest of the town. Russ pointed his wand and thought a nonverbal command. "There, it's open. If you remember the room where you followed Sirius to, you can apparate."

"How do I know you're not sending me into a barrier?"

"I'll apparate first. Or we can apparate side by side. Honestly, Potter, you are one of the most suspicious people."

"And you're not?"

"You choose how we do it. I won't move."

Harry accepted this and disapparated. As soon as he disappeared, Russ followed. They were standing in the room where Remus and Sirius had changed Scabbers back into Peter Pettigrew, a transformation Russ had not witnessed, having been unconscious at the time.

Russ walked over to the wall by the door. There was a small dark smudge there that might have been long-dried blood. "You really clobbered me that day, you know. I had a concussion, and I kept forgetting things. I see where I cracked the back of my head. I always wondered, though, where I got the bumps on the top. I had headaches for weeks."

Harry didn't answer, but Russ had the impression he was a bit embarrassed by the question. Harry turned away rather quickly and pulled the door open, stepping out onto the staircase. "Let's find Hagrid," he said.

They clattered down the stairs and slipped into the tunnel, groping their way along until they neared the Whomping Willow. It was now about one-thirty in the afternoon, and neither wanted to be seen by other students, so they checked carefully before leaving the shelter of the Willow's roots and dodging into the shadows of the forest, from there making their way toward Hagrid's hut.

"Hey! You! What're you doing in the forest? That's out of bounds!"

Harry ducked down quickly at the sound of the voice, leaving Russ to face Hagrid across some low bushes and a stretch of open ground. Beyond Hagrid, up the hill, Russ could see there were students on the lawn. "Uh, Hagrid?" he called. "Could you help me? I think I'm caught on something."

Hagrid lumbered over, shoving bushes aside as he came. "It's you, young Moody. I guess maybe no one told you to stay out of the forest. It's a dangerous place, especially for someone who's only just getting the hang of magic. Let's see what you got here… Why bless my soul! It's Harry! How'd you two come to know each other?"

"My uncle took me to Bill Weasley's wedding. We met there," Russ said quickly, shaking his head slightly to warn Harry to be silent. "Harry thought it would be less noticeable contacting me than someone everyone knows is his friend."

"Hi, Hagrid," Harry said, still staying low behind the bushes. "Do you think you can get me into your hut without everyone seeing me?"

"Sure, I'm big enough to hide three of you. Just walk beside and keep me between you and the hill." Hagrid strolled slowly to his hut with Russ on his left in full view of the hill, and Harry on his right concealed behind the half-giant's bulk. Once inside the hut, they all relaxed. "Tea?" Hagrid asked.

Both accepted tea, though they declined Hagrid's biscuits with the excuse that they'd just eaten lunch.

"So, Harry, what've you been doing with yourself? We was expecting you back to school, but you didn't come."

"I've been trying to put some pieces together and, well, carry on. I visited my parents' grave and then tried to see the house at Godric's Hollow. That was a problem."

"It's a right mess, isn't it? I went in after you, then I went back for James and Lily. Fair blown up, and the fire and all."

"I didn't exactly see that. You see, I can't get into the house. It's still under the Fidelius charm."

"Well, I'd not thought about that. I could see it fine – never did occur to me that others couldn't. It's a shame, it is, that you can't get in."

"You could, Hagrid. I'd like you to come with me and go into the house. I'm trying to find some things, and I'm worried that someone else may have gone in and disturbed the place."

"I suppose I could do that. When were you thinking of?"

"This afternoon," Harry replied. "Now."

"That's a bit of short notice, don't you think?" said Hagrid.

"At least today you're not teaching," Russ pointed out. "Today's a lot better than tomorrow."

"I suppose if you look at it like that. Have you been licensed yet?"

"Licensed? What for?" Harry was clearly puzzled.

"To apparate, of course. I'm a Hogwarts teacher. I ought not to be apparating with someone who ain't licensed. It's not fitting. And you," Hagrid looked at Russ. "You're too young to be apparating in any case. You'd best stay here. Now what are you laughing at?" This last was addressed to Harry, who'd suddenly been seized with a fit of the giggles.

"It's all right, Hagrid," Harry laughed, "I'm licensed, and I can take Russ with me. He's been good enough to help me with some ideas, and it wouldn't be fair to leave him behind."

"If you're feeling like that, then let 'im come. But better he apparate with me. I got more experience and more power, while you're still new at it."

Russ would, in any case, not have been able to apparate alone to Godric's Hollow, since he'd never been there before. Hagrid clasped him in a giant bear hug, and a moment later they were in a little village in the west country, though looking around at the moors, Russ was not exactly certain which part. Maybe Devon…

"Somerset, actually," said Harry, who'd been watching him. "That over there is Exmoor." He led the way down to the village, but slowed as he approached it, letting Hagrid precede him since Hagrid could see the house. Right at the outskirts, where a little row of houses extended their gardens towards the moor, Hagrid suddenly disappeared. Neither boy had seen where he'd gone.

Just as suddenly, Hagrid was back again. "Looks about the same, though I think you're right about somebody being there in the meantime. Things is a bit different from when I saw it last. What am I looking for?"

"We don't know," said Harry, and glanced at Russ. They shared a whispered conversation, which Harry relayed to Hagrid.

"It could be anything, large or small, ornate or shoddy – not too obvious, though or he'd have found it. Something that looks in too good a condition to be there. Like something was preserving it from harm."

"Okay, I'll give it a shot. But I don't see as anything like that could be there."

When Hagrid disappeared again, Russ turned to look out over the moor. It reminded him of home, and he was a little surprised that James Potter would have chosen a spot that to him would have seemed desolate – Exmoor…

That's when it hit him. Russ spun on Harry. "Why did you tell me it was Somerset?"

"You said it might be Devon. I just told you it was Somerset."

"I didn't say that. I thought it. You read my thoughts. You're a legilimens. A pretty good one, too."

"No, I'm not. I don't read people's minds. I heard you say that."

"When you're fighting or dueling, do you hear your opponents say spells before they say them?"

"I hear them say the spells, and I usually get my counter spells off before they're finished."

"That kind of reaction time is impossible unless you're picking up the spell mentally before they say it." Russ considered Harry very carefully. "You're a parselmouth, too, aren't you."

"Yeah, but Dumbledore explained that."

"Really? What did he say?"

"Remember when the Chamber of Secrets was opened? I was afraid that I was a lot like Tom Riddle. Dumbledore told me not to worry. He said that Voldemort that night, the night my parents died, transferred some of his powers to me. Not intentionally, but by accident. He put a bit of himself in me. That's why I can speak Parseltongue. Maybe it's why I can hear what people are going to say."

"Put a bit of himself in you? Is that what Dumbledore said?"

"Not exactly. I asked if Voldemort put a bit of himself in me, and Dumbledore said it certainly seemed so. Do you think it's important?"

"Probably not," replied Russ, suddenly wary. "Probably not important at all." But he was certain now that Hagrid would find nothing in the cottage, just as the Dark Lord had found nothing when he returned to Godric's Hollow. If a Horcrux had been created that night, it hadn't remained in the cottage. It had left, wrapped in blankets and carried by Hagrid on Sirius Black's motorcycle.

xxxxxxxxxx

"I want to speak to Dumbledore," Russ insisted, refusing McGonagall's offers of tea, cake, and a chair to sit in. "Where is he?"

"You know, you should adopt a somewhat more respectful attitude when you come in here. I am the headmistress."

"I don't work for you anymore, you can't fire me. You could expel me, but since I've already found what I came for, it wouldn't matter to me. So where's Dumbledore?"

"What have you found?"

"The information superhighway runs in two directions, and I asked first. Where's Dumbledore?"

"I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't?" Russ waited, but McGonagall remained silent. "Either you know, but you won't tell me because you don't think I should know, or you know, but you won't tell me because Dumbledore ordered you not to tell me, or you don't know. Which is it – tyranny, obedience, or ignorance?"

"We are drawing out the big guns. I'm flattered. But you will not cozen me into revealing anything."

"I'll go with ignorance. You don't know where he is. Which is a shame because if you can't even contact him at need, he might as well be dead."

"I would hardly call this need."

"Then you can contact him. Come on, McGonagall, dearest Headmistress, at least relay my request."

"You go from vinegar to sugar faster than anyone I know. All right. I'll relay your request, but don't get your hopes up."

"You're an angel. Does the offer of cake still stand?"

"You rascal!"

xxxxxxxxxx

Russ had barely set his foot on the marble staircase to go to supper when he was seized from behind by three pairs of hands and hustled down into the room where the first years wait to be sorted, while Luna and Neville stood guard, made sure no one was paying attention, then joined them.

"You've been gone all day – with Harry – and then you go up to McGonagall. What happened?" Ron punctuated his insistence with a jab or two.

"Stop poking me."

"Stop acting like a girl." Ron didn't have a chance to say any more because Hermione, Ginny, and Luna all began poking, prodding, and jabbing him to the great amusement of both Russ and Neville.

"Give! Give!" Ron hollered, and the girls stopped. "Geez, you can't say anything anymore without people getting all sensitive about it. I just meant he shouldn't complain. He should either take it or poke me back."

"Right," said Hermione, "and start a fight. Boys!" She turned to Russ. "What happened with Harry?"

"We went to the Natural History Museum and had lunch. Ouch!" This last was because Ginny had stepped on his toes.

"When you're asked a civil question, you should give a civil answer," Ginny said.

"It's true! We went someplace where no one knew us, wizards would never go, and no one would pay attention to what we were talking about. Museums are great for all three."

"Okay," said Luna. "What then?"

"We talked. He doesn't hate me so much anymore. He tried to go to Godric's Hollow, but couldn't find the house, so we came back here and got Hagrid to go with us. We apparated to…"

"You can't apparate out of here," Hermione's voice had taken on a suspicious tone.

"We went into the forest. It's okay if Hagrid's with you. And once we were past the barriers, we apparated."

"What did you find?"

"Nothing. I swear, when Hagrid checked out the house, he didn't find anything."

It took several minutes for Russ to convince the others that he had no new information. Once that point was made, they all headed for the Great Hall and supper, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Neville moving past the other two to go to the Gryffindor table along the far side. Luna pulled Russ down onto the bench beside her, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper.

"You're not telling us everything."

"What gives you that idea?"

"Last month we had this big theory started about how something happened the night Dumbledore fell, but now you've dropped it and we don't talk about it anymore. This afternoon you go out with Harry and Hagrid, say you find nothing, but go running to McGonagall the instant you get back. And the teachers! I've been checking with the first and third years, and Sprout has you working on a special project in Herbology, while Flitwick and Switch treat you with kid gloves, like they're almost afraid you'll criticize how they teach classes."

"No they don't."

"Yes they do. The others think it's because you're comparing them to American teachers, but I think they know who you are. Now, does Hagrid know who you are?"

"No."

"Does McGonagall know who you are?"

Russ didn't answer.

Luna's eyes flashed. "Traitor. And here we thought you were one of us."

"I'm not exactly in a position to make the rules."

"Who doesn't want us to know?"

"There's a concern that…" Russ's voice sank to almost nothing. "Look, anything you know, you'll tell Harry. Harry's looking for Voldemort. When he finds Voldemort, he'll show him everything because Harry's mind has walls of glass. There're things you can't know because Harry can't know because if Voldemort knows we're all dead. I don't want to be dead. Certainly not the way he'll do it."

"So we all learn occlumency."

"Well enough in a couple of months to keep the Dark Lord out of your head? I don't think so. And Harry, Ron, and Ginny? Hopeless. It would only mean there would be things you, Neville, and Hermione couldn't discuss with the other three, and it would push you further apart."

"I'm already apart. How about just me? Not the occlumency, of course. All of us need that. But you could tell me things in the Ravenclaw common room or right here at this table that the others would never know."

"How do I know you wouldn't turn around and tell them?"

"You don't. Sometimes you just have to have faith. But if I know what's happening, then if you get into trouble I'll know about it and can go to someone like Professor McGonagall for help. You need backup, you know."

"Let me think about it."

"Don't think too long. I'm thinking of writing an article for _The Quibbler_ about you."

Later Russ was in the library, ostensibly to work on his assignments for Divination and Herbology for the next day, but in reality to try to think things through.

_McGonagall says I'm not supposed to tell Hagrid about either me or the Horcruxes. Moody says I'm not supposed to tell McGonagall or the other teachers about the Horcruxes, though I've slipped on that one with McGonagall. McGonagall says I'm not supposed to tell Moody or the students about Dumbledore. Is there anyone besides me who knows about everything? McGonagall knows most of it, but she doesn't know about the sixth Horcrux. Dumbledore? I can't imagine McGonagall not telling Dumbledore about me. But does he know about the sixth Horcrux? And Lupin. Has Moody told Lupin about the Horcruxes? I don't remember. And if he did, would Lupin tell the rest of the Order?_

_This would be so much easier if we all trusted each other with information, but the Dark Lord's legilimency makes that impossible._

_Does the Dark Lord know about Luna? She is somewhat on the outside, and he might not have been told enough about her to make her a target. And she's right about needing backup. But can she keep her mouth shut?_

_But how bad could it be if we all knew everything?_ Russ forced himself to think of the end of the Triwizard Tournament and the day Snape had returned to the Dark Lord. _How much worse could it be?_

By the time Russ went back to the Ravenclaw common room and to his own little cupboard, he had not yet made up his mind.

xxxxxxxxxx


	9. Chapter 9 – The Circle Widens

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: The Circle Widens**

_Monday, October 13, 1997_

The next morning Russ was pulled out of Divination and sent to the Headmistress's office where he was kept cooling his heels for a few minutes until McGonagall admitted him. He realized at once that she'd been talking on the floo network.

"I don't know what your secret is, Severus, but you seem to get your way more than any other teacher in this school. The Order says they'll see you, but you have to go to them."

"Where are they? And why can't I see Dumbledore?"

"I can't tell you. Only they're not at Grimmauld Place. We can't use that as long as Harry holds back from us. And they'll decide if you go on to Albus. Now first you have to travel by floo powder, and when you reach your destination they'll brief you and send you along to the Order."

"Who'll brief me?"

"You ask for far too much information. It's enough to make one quite irritated with you. Just get yourself a handful of floo powder, step into the fireplace and say 'Malton.'"

"Malton or Maldon?"

"There are two?"

"One's in Yorkshire, and the other's in Essex."

"The one spelled with a T."

"Then I'm going to Yorkshire?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. It can't be healthy, asking so many questions. Now get along with you."

Russ took the floo powder, stepped over the hearth, and did as he was told. He spun away dizzily and arrived a little out of breath in the kitchen fireplace of an old farmhouse. Two men were waiting for him.

"Don't talk," one said. "We don't know who you are or where you're going, and you don't know us. Keep it that way. Once you're gone this place is off the floo network and you'll never find it."

The two led Russ to the adjoining main room and another fireplace. _This house is a connecting point for two different networks,_ Russ realized suddenly. _When it disconnects, I can't be traced_. He was presented with a basin of floo powder.

"Just take this and say, 'Folkestone,'" his guide said. Russ did as he was told.

This time Russ arrived in the back of a shop. A man and a woman helped him out of the fireplace. "You're just a boy," the woman said. "We were expecting a powerful wizard."

"No chatter," said the man. "This is what you do. Take the powder and say 'Number Thirty-seven.' When you get there, don't talk. Don't say anything. They'll send you to your destination. You just let them do it."

Russ nodded, and followed instructions, finding himself in an ancient hall. A man and a woman helped him over the hearth and took him upstairs to a bedroom with a small fireplace, a third network. The man handed him a folded piece of parchment which Russ opened to read, Second storeroom, undercroft, refectory, Abbey Mont-St.-Michel, just before the parchment crumbled to dust in his hands. He didn't even hear the words that sent him spinning through space into yet another fireplace, where he found himself facing the brickwork at the back of a medieval hearth. He stood very still, not daring to move.

There was one woman in long maroon robes waiting to escort him. She did not speak, but gestured to him to follow her.

They walked on a smooth stone floor through a low-ceilinged, windowless room vaulted with wide Romanesque arches, the only light a faint Lumos spell from the French witch's wand that left her face in shadow. A door opened, and they continued along a corridor to a storeroom on the left. There the beam of light narrowed to illuminate only Russ and no one else.

"That's him," Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice said, "we'll take over now," and the guide left the room. "Well, Severus, you've changed," Shacklebolt added as the room was lit and Russ allowed to see the rest. It seemed that apart from the Hogwarts teachers and Mundungus Fletcher, everyone in the Order was there, including Moody. They sat around a heavy wooden table in the center of the storeroom, Shacklebolt at its head. He gestured for Russ to sit in the empty seat on his left.

Shacklebolt began. "For those of you not yet aware of the totality of Alastor's schemes, this rather charming young man is our old friend Severus Snape under the influence of Polyjuice Potion. He's been hunting for something at Hogwarts with the help of Harry Potter's friends. Am I to understand that you've found it?"

"Wait a minute," interjected Moody, rising to his feet. "Just how much do these others know?"

"Not enough, it would appear," said Russ quietly. "That's one of the reasons I was permitted this meeting."

"Permitted? You asked! You sneaky little…!"

"Sit down, Alastor," Shacklebolt said calmly. "Secrecy up to a point can be a good thing, but not when it hampers our efforts. This is the order of business, Severus. First, you tell us what you know. Then we confer. Then, if we feel it's appropriate, we tell you what we know and maybe grant your request."

"You don't trust me?"

"Under the circumstances, would you trust you?"

"Wait a minute," exclaimed Elphias Doge. "If he's taking Polyjuice, how do any of us know that this is really Severus?"

Russ looked down the table at the Weasleys. "Molly, do you remember Potter's birthday party? Do you remember the gift I gave him?" She nodded and Russ continued, "I let the Polyjuice wear off so that Potter could see who I really was and kill me if he wanted to."

"That's right!" Moody roared. "And a foolish, idiotic stunt it was, too!" but Molly merely nodded her head again. Doge seemed satisfied.

"This doesn't mean," Shacklebolt said, "that we trust you."

"Point taken. We start with Dumbledore. Has everyone here seen the Pensieve memories?" There was a nod of assent around the table.

"I think," said Shacklebolt, "that we can accept as given that you threw Professor Dumbledore off the Astronomy Tower on his orders."

"I've since learned," Russ continued, "that not only was he not killed by the words of the curse, he survived the fall." He waited for the gasps and murmuring to die down, noting that Moody looked as shocked as the others, but that Shacklebolt was quite calm. "This didn't surprise me," Snape continued, "as I'd already reached the conclusion that he must still be alive."

"You'll have to explain that, Severus," Doge said coldly. "Not everyone would have agreed with you."

"There are some complicated time sequences, but part of it is physical evidence. Ginny Weasley observed Dumbledore's body before it was moved, and reports that he was lying on his back with his eyes closed and his limbs positioned awkwardly. There had been a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth which Harry Potter had wiped away, and Harry had also straightened his glasses, which were still on his face. Other than that, he looked asleep."

"Why is this important?" Dedalus Diggle asked.

"Hogwarts is an old castle that stands eight stories high with the Astronomy Tower rising above that. You know how high that is. It's nearly a three hundred foot fall. If his body 'd free fallen that distance there would have been more damage. In addition, dead bodies don't close their eyes. Look at the Pensieve memory. His eyes were open when I said the words of the curse. If he'd died at once, his eyes would still have been open. That means something slowed his fall, and he either closed his own eyes, or someone did it for him before Harry arrived. But I have even more expert evidence."

"Which is?" Hestia Jones asked.

"Minerva McGonagall and Rubeus Hagrid. Hagrid sent for McGonagall, and it was some time before they rejoined the others. McGonagall tells me that Dumbledore was still alive, but that he was sinking fast. He was sent to France for medical care. You can ask her yourself."

"Why didn't she tell us?" Doge asked over the babble of voices.

"Because she didn't know where I was, and didn't want the Dark Lord to learn inadvertently that I hadn't killed Dumbledore. That was why she never allowed his body to be viewed at the funeral. There was no body to view. I'm sure she'd tell you herself now if you asked nicely."

"Oh, we shall ask, Severus. We shall ask. Everything you say will be double and triple checked. Now, what have you been looking for and found?"

"The Dark Lord's Horcruxes."

Half the table responded with looks of bewilderment, but the other half, including all of those who were aurors, were visibly upset. "Horcruxes?" Tonks asked, with a note of disbelief in her voice. "Plural?"

"Six, if what Potter's friends tell me is true. Two have been destroyed, two we believe are in our possession, and we think we know what the other two are."

Shacklebolt called for order and the people around the table grew quiet again. "For those unfamiliar with the term," he said, "I shall explain the nature of Horcruxes after the meeting. Now, Severus, how do you know there are six, and what are they?"

"Dumbledore believed there were six, and so informed Harry, who passed this information on to his friends. The first was a diary that had been left in the care of Lucius Malfoy. Not knowing what it was, he mistakenly tried using it to open the Chamber of Secrets, and it was destroyed by Potter. The second was a ring bearing the Peverell coat of arms, which had something to do with the Dark Lord's ancestry, I don't know what. Dumbledore destroyed that one himself a year ago last July."

"A third of them gone. At least we have that," sighed Arthur Weasley.

"The next Horcrux is the one that Dumbledore was trying to get in the second pensieve memory, the one where he drinks the green liquid. The locket he was after turned out to be a fake, and is still in the possession of Potter. The original locket was somehow removed by Regulus Black, was hidden for many years at Grimmauld Place, was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher after Kreacher was ordered to Hogwarts, and was purchased by none other than Aberforth Dumbledore. Hermione Granger and I stole it from him. He probably doesn't yet know that it's missing."

Charlie Weasley burst out laughing. "You and Hermione stole something from Aberforth? Gad, I'd've loved to 've seen that!" He was shushed by everyone, especially his parents.

"The fourth Horcrux was also an artifact known to Dumbledore," Russ continued after a quick wink at Charlie. "It's a cup that belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. We believe we've found the cup, disguised as a trophy in the Hogwarts trophy room. We don't know how it got there. We believe, though it's just a conjecture, that the fifth is a wand that was once Rowena Ravenclaw's. If so, it was on display in Ollivander's window for years. We don't have any idea where it is, except that it's probably under the Dark Lord's control."

"And the sixth?" Shacklebolt asked.

"Dumbledore apparently believed that the Dark Lord intended to make the sixth Horcrux at the time that he was planning to kill Potter. That he went to Godric's Hollow with an artifact of Godric Gryffindor's, prepared to create the Horcrux there. He was foiled. The existence of his other Horcruxes kept him from death, but the Horcrux he intended was not made. We believe another was accidentally made in its stead."

"Which was?"

"Harry Potter himself."

The babble that erupted at this pronouncement took several minutes to calm down. Then Shacklebolt once again addressed Russ. "What makes you think this?"

"Against all logic or odds, Potter is a parselmouth. I know from personal experience that he is also instinctively a powerful legilimens. Both are traits of the Dark Lord. Potter's friends say that Dumbledore confirmed that a bit of the Dark Lord was in Potter. We have to accept at least the possibility that Potter is a Horcrux."

"I didn't think any living thing could be a Horcrux," said Tonks.

"I know of no physical reason why it couldn't be done," replied Russ, "though using a mortal creature to house a guarantee of immortality would be a poor choice. We don't have to worry about the logic of it, however, since if it happened, it appears to have been unintentional. Potter and I went back to Godric's Hollow with Hagrid to see if Hagrid could find an artifact suitable for the Dark Lord's Horcrux, but we were unsuccessful."

Moody was on his feet again. "You went where with who!" he shouted. "I thought you were working for me!"

"Only because you forced me," Russ said quite calmly. "There's no such thing as loyalty under duress."

"Are you telling me," said Shacklebolt, "that Harry knows who you are?"

"I already told you. I showed him and gave him the chance to kill me."

"Right. I remember. But you've been working with him?"

"It was his decision. He insisted we talk. If I refused, he was going to blow my cover."

"Which means?"

"Tell everybody who I was and get me into real trouble. I did what he told me to, the same as I did for Moody for the same reasons."

There was a long pause. Finally Russ said, "That's all I know. Everything new, at least."

"I have a terrible feeling," said Dedalus Diggle mournfully, "that we have nothing to tell you."

Shacklebolt coughed slightly. "If you would be so good as to step outside for a moment, Severus, we will confer."

Russ nodded, rose from his chair, and went to the door. Behind him Molly Weasley spoke up. "If the rest of you don't mind, I'll leave Arthur to confer for the both of us. Let me show you around a bit Russell. The fresh air will do me good."

After respectfully opening the door and allowing her to precede him, Russ followed Molly through the undercroft to a place where there were narrow windows opening onto the northwest and the Gulf of Saint-Malo. Molly had a sly, Mona Lisa smile as she turned to him. "Such a gentleman. Are you mellowing in your old age?"

"Maybe," Russ replied, leaning against the cool stone and staring out over the water. "One's perception changes when one is younger, shorter, and once again writing essays for Slughorn's Potions class. Do you know that Ginny trod on my toes yesterday as a lesson not to be cheeky? And she remembered perfectly well who I am. Sometimes I have trouble remembering who I am. In an odd way, I actually like it."

"It is not odd at all, Russell. Who hasn't wished for the opportunity to live things over and do a better job the second time around? I certainly have. Now you get to do it when you're older and wiser."

"Older, wiser, and in a lot more trouble than I could ever have gotten into the first time I was fifteen. Do you think they believed anything I said?" Somehow talking to Molly was easier than he would have expected. Then it registered. "Why are you calling me Russell?"

"Because that's who I see. And believe me, talking to Russell is much easier than talking to Severus Snape."

There was nothing to say to that, and Russ wisely said nothing. Molly was gazing out at the waves now, a pensive look on her face. "The last time I saw you," she said quietly, "Alastor was dragging you out of my house, your wrists manacled like a felon, and do you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of all those years ago when they hauled you into the Ministry of Magic for your trial, and I so desperately wanted you in Azkaban. It made me sick for months to think how easily you'd gotten off."

"Would it comfort you to know that Hogwarts was a prison, too?"

"No. It was better than you deserved… You don't have to say anything. Albus assured me years ago that you had nothing to do personally with their deaths, and two years ago that you'd worked from inside to bring him down. But what you did before that…"

They were silent again as Molly remembered her brothers and Russ remembered the long months of fear and guilt after the Dark Lord was defeated. When Molly resumed, her voice had grown gentle again. "Then Albus told us what happened when you went back, after Cedric was… and now, with your arm. I suppose there is such a thing as atonement."

"I wouldn't know." Russ continued staring out at the water, though he knew Molly had turned to look at him.

"Duty?" she asked.

"Self preservation. It was go back or die like Karkaroff."

"But you went back as a spy."

"That was for personal reasons."

"What reasons?"

"Revenge." Russ adjusted his position at the window so he could face Molly. "I have my dead, too. What were they like?"

"Fun to be with. Always joking. I suppose that's why I let Fred and George get away with so much. They remind me of Fabian and Gideon. They were named for their uncles, after a fashion. But Fabian and Gideon were steadier, more dependable. Like Bill and Charlie in that. Brave and dedicated. We were very close."

"I was an only child," Russ said, not sure himself what he meant by it.

Footsteps interrupted the conversation. Russ and Molly watched Hestia Jones approach from the direction of the storeroom. "They're ready to see you again," she told Russ.

Sitting once again next to Shacklebolt, Russ glanced around the table. There had been one of those subtle shifts of mood, and he felt as if they were now more disposed to trust him.

"What we have to tell you isn't much," Shacklebolt said wearily. "We're hampered by lack of information. Scrimgeour doesn't share power gladly, and we can't get help from the Ministry. Arthur, Tonks, and I do what we can, but the left hand is speaking to the right hand far less than before, and there's much that we're shut out of. Thankfully, he still doesn't know we're in the Order. You used to provide inside information from the enemy camp, and now we know Yaxley did, too, but either you were the only ones, or the others have gone to ground, because nothing is coming to us from there either."

"I never knew of anyone else," said Russ. "But then I didn't know about Yaxley until recently."

Shacklebolt grunted. "Then there's Harry. He won't talk to anyone about anything. Except you. Suddenly he's talking to you."

"I think that's because I already knew a lot of it. He didn't really have to tell me a lot." Russ glanced around the table, puzzled at the glaring omission. "What about Dumbledore? I know at least one of you was already aware he was still alive."

The attention of the whole group shifted to Shacklebolt, who looked uncomfortable. Apparently none of them knew that Tonks was in on the secret, and Russ saw no reason to enlighten them.

"For all practical purposes," Shacklebolt began, "Albus is not in the picture. At first he was in a coma, and it was a daily battle for the healers just to keep him alive. They were working in the dark since the poison had been in his system for a couple of days before he got to them. They had nothing to analyze. The first breakthrough we got was when you woke up and showed us that memory. Just knowing the color and viscosity of the liquid he drank gave them something to work on. He woke up a couple of weeks ago, but he wasn't the same – memory and reasoning both shaky. We can't count on him for a good while, if ever."

"No wonder McGonagall didn't want to tell me anything," Russ sighed, wondering if McGonagall even realized how ill Dumbledore was. Almost certainly not.

"Be that as it may, Albus is convalescent and Harry won't help us, so we have to act without them. We've been working on plans to attack Voldemort, not that we have anything concrete yet, but the existence of the Horcruxes means we'll have to be sure that they're destroyed before we can deal with Voldemort himself. Otherwise we're back where we started. We have two of them. Can we destroy them now?"

Russ shook his head. "For some reason, Dumbledore felt that Potter's the one who has to confront the Dark Lord. I personally would prefer someone more reliable, but until I know Dumbledore's reasons, I would have to advise against taking the task from Potter. Besides, if you go around destroying Horcruxes, does that mean you'll kill Potter, too?"

"Absolutely not!" cried Molly, jumping to her feet. "No one is touching that boy! I'd stand in your way myself!" Others were rising in support of her outburst.

"I see your point," Shacklebolt said, motioning to the rest to resume their seats.

"Personally," said Tonks, "I think it has something to do with the prophecy that was in the Department of Mysteries. But that was destroyed before anyone could hear it."

"Someone heard it," said Diggle. "The Seer who pronounced it, and whoever was with her at the moment she spoke."

"The Seer was Sibyll Trelawney," said Sturgis Podmore, speaking for the first time. "But Seers don't know what they prophesy. The only one who heard her was Dumbledore. When he's well enough so the healers will let us talk to him…"

There was a moment's pause, then Moody brought his fist crashing down on the table, drawing everyone's eyes. But Moody wasn't looking at everyone. He was looking at Russ, who immediately turned away again, but not before Moody's eye had read him.

Moody grinned. "You got to learn to control that, boyo. That's the second time in two years I caught you with the same trick. Ladies and gentlemen, our young friend here knows more about the prophecy than he cares to say. I don't know what he knows, but he's hiding something."

All attention was focused once more on Russ. "Did Dumbledore tell you the prophecy?" Shacklebolt asked.

"No," Russ replied, staring down at his hands.

"Did Harry tell you?"

"No."

Moody sprang up and strode past the others to Russ's side. Gripping the boy's head between his palms and holding the eyelids open with his thumbs, Moody forced Russ to look up into his eyes. "Do you know the prophecy?" he shouted.

"No," Russ replied.

"Liar!" Moody snapped, and released Russ's head.

Silence filled the room as Moody returned to his seat and Russ stared again at his hands.

"Severus," Shacklebolt said at last, "the prophecy is valuable to us. If we're to do what Dumbledore wanted, we have to get it. Do you know the prophecy?"

The silence was almost unbearable. Russ closed his eyes and nodded. "Part of it," he whispered.

"Who told you?" Shacklebolt asked.

"Trelawney. I was there that day. I… overheard her. Just the first part, not the whole thing."

"How did that happen?"

"It was October '79. I… came to Hogsmeade looking for a teaching job. I saw Dumbledore go into the Hogs Head, and I followed him to Trelawney's room. I heard the first part of the prophecy through the door, but then the barman caught me, and I didn't hear the rest."

"Tell us what you heard." It was a command, not a request.

Mechanically, like a school boy reciting his lessons, Russ said, "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…" Then he stopped. "That's all I heard."

"What does it mean?" Shacklebolt's tone said he already had a good idea.

"It foretold the birth at the end of the following July of a baby who would defeat the Dark Lord. Potter was born at the end of the following July. It foretold his birth and his role."

"That doesn't make any sense," growled Podmore.

"I think it does," Shacklebolt responded. "The word 'dies' rather than 'died' implies…"

"I don't mean that! I'm talking about his story!" As the members of the Order focused on Podmore, he continued. "In 1979, you were already a Death Eater. Why would a Death Eater be looking for another job?"

"The Dark Lord wanted me to get a job at Hogwarts so that I could spy on Dumbledore."

"Did you get the job?" The question was almost an accusation.

"No." Russ stared fixedly at his hands, feeling their eyes on him now.

"So you had to go back to Voldemort and tell him you'd failed your assignment."

"Yes."

The room waited in horrified silence, for by now everyone understood where the questioning was heading.

"He was angry, wasn't he? Did he punish you?"

"Yes." There was no need to elaborate. They all knew what that meant.

"What did you give him, to quell his anger?"

"I gave him the prophecy."

Podmore leaned back, satisfied. "It was you, then. You gave him James and Lily."

Russ looked up then, suddenly angry and ready to fight back. "No," he said firmly, "I gave him the first part of a prophecy. There was no way to know who it referred to. She was not yet with child. It could have been anyone. Since Trelawney had never before shown signs of being a Seer, it could have been no one. We didn't know until the following July that it was James and Lily – and Harry. That's why I left him."

"All right," said Shacklebolt. "That's enough. Interrogation over. We have to concentrate on the job we have now, not on the past. What does the prophecy mean in terms of our own actions?"

"Clearly," said Arthur Weasley, "the one who can vanquish Voldemort is the one born at the end of July – Harry. Dumbledore thought so. It explains many of his actions. So, will we, nill we, we have to get Harry on board. Otherwise we're doomed to fail."

"Can you speak to him?" Shacklebolt asked Russ. "If he's started talking to you, maybe he'll open up to us. If he won't, we may have to fall back on other alternatives. Can you still get into Death Eater headquarters?"

Russ's eyes widened. "No," he said flatly. "Don't even think about it. I'm not going back."

"You may have no choice, dear," said Molly sweetly. "Weren't you the one that told me and Arthur in July that Voldemort might kidnap Harry's friends? Well you're one of Harry's friends now. What if Voldemort decides to kidnap you?"

After a moment of shocked silence, Russ turned to face Shacklebolt. "She's right. We have to prepare for all eventualities, and I just realized… Mrs. Weasley just pointed out… one of them isn't covered. What if the Dark Lord captures Harry's friends? What if he captures Russell Moody? Me? I have to go to San Francisco."

"Oh no!" cried Moody. "You let him out of anyone's sight and he's gone forever. This is an excuse to escape from both Voldemort and us."

"Then you have to be sure," retorted Russ, "that I never face the Dark Lord. If he gets me, he gets everything you've planned. Harry, Horcruxes, everything."

"You'd betray us? Just like that, eh. You'd betray us." Elphias Doge's voice was scornful.

"I wouldn't have a choice. I can't talk my way out of this one. He knows I betrayed him. He'll play with me for a while, and I'll tell him everything he wants to know in exchange for a quick death."

"Frank and Alice Longbottom wouldn't talk. They went mad first."

"The Longbottoms were in the hands of the Lestranges. They only have one technique between them. The Dark Lord is more subtle. In his hands, madness is not an option."

Shacklebolt spoke up. "But if you're captured, it'll be as Russell Moody, not as Severus Snape. He wouldn't have the same reason to question or torture Russell Moody, would he? You're an occlumens. You could hide the fact that you're Snape."

"I could hide being Snape. I couldn't convince him that I was Moody. He's a masterful legilimens. If he examines me for memories of San Francisco, he'll get a dangerously small number of images for someone who grew up there. He'll know at once that I'm a fraud."

Moody grunted unhappily. "I think you're just looking for an excuse to go on vacation."

Russ grinned. "There is that aspect of it. I didn't get one this summer. But I'm serious about the legilimency. No memories of San Francisco is a dead giveaway. I'd have to spend some time collecting images from all over the city and its surrounding areas." Russ paused, a sly look coming over his face. "I was thinking maybe… skiing in the Sierras, going to Disneyland in Los Angeles, Las Vegas…"

"That's in Nevada!" Moody shrieked.

"Rich Americans don't stay in one state. Maybe I should also visit New York. Or Chicago."

"Stick to California," Shacklebolt said, laughing. "You'll have enough to do there." The other members of the Order appeared amused as well.

"So you agree!" Russ's enthusiasm was unmistakable.

"Much as I hate to admit it, the scenario of Russell Moody coming into contact with Voldemort is more likely than the scenario of Severus Snape going back to Voldemort. You'll need images, and you can't get them from photographs."

"When can I leave?"

"Don't sound so enthusiastic. This is supposed to be work. Do you know anyone who's familiar with San Francisco and could show you around?"

"Russ met Mylor Sylvanus at Bill Weasley's wedding." Moody said reluctantly. "He's been there frequently."

Shacklebolt peered suspiciously at Moody. "Are you certain you want your 'nephew' to travel with him?"

"Why wouldn't I want…?" Russ began.

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Moody said quickly, looking innocently around the room, a small smile playing around his lips. "You'll need a cover story."

"My parents' divorce. They need me to testify in court because there's a custody fight. That should be good for a few weeks."

"Excellent," said Shacklebolt. "Give it a week to ten days to lay the ground work at school and you should be on your way by the twenty-fifth at the latest."

"How much should I tell McGonagall?"

"I'll tell Minerva. And you'll probably have to tell Sylvanus about your split personality. Handle that as you see fit. Ladies and gentlemen, if no one has any further business to discuss, I think we're finished. And young master Moody here needs to get ready to go 'home' for a while."

Going back to Hogwarts turned out to be more circuitous and take longer than any of them were expecting, except perhaps McGonagall. The medieval hearth in the undercroft of Abbey Mont-St.-Michel swept Russ away to a bedroom where a man stepped forward holding a cloth in his hand. "I have to blindfold you," he said with a strong accent. "You will not speak. We do everything."

Russ nodded, and followed instructions. Unable to see at the next stop, he could nonetheless hear a woman's voice say something that sounded like 'Fear in tock-tick,' and realized he was listening to another language. Once again he was drawn through the underground floo network into yet another fireplace. He stood very still, not daring to move.

A man's voice said, "Il est très jeune."

"Ne parlez pas," a woman replied. "C'est le paquet pour Monsieur Percival." A hand took Russ's arm and drew him out of the fireplace. "Venez avec moi."

They walked on a smooth wooden floor in what sounded like a high-ceilinged room. A door opened, and they continued down a corridor and up a flight of stairs into a room off the landing. There, as the two still held his arms so he couldn't remove the blindfold, a third voice – Dumbledore's voice – said, "What was I wearing at lunch on Christmas Day 1993?"

Smiling now, Russ answered, "A hat. A witch's hat with a stuffed vulture on it. It was a pathetic attempt at humor."

"C'est lui. Vous pouvez nous laisser seuls maintenant. Merci," Dumbledore said, and the two guides left the room. "Well, Severus, you've changed. You may take the blindfold off now."

Russ reached to the back of his head and carefully untied the cloth, then blinked as he looked around. Sunlight was shining through tall windows that opened like doors onto a balcony overlooking a wide garden. At the other end of the large, gilded room was a canopied bed. In front of him was a table in the French Rococo style, a few elegant chairs, and a very comfortable-looking chaise longue on which Dumbledore reclined, leaning against pillows and covered with a crocheted Afghan. Dumbledore did not look well at all. He was very thin, and his skin had a grayish tint to it. His hands were shaking slightly, as if with palsy.

"Sit down, Severus. Sit down. I have taken the liberty of asking for a bottle of mead for us as well as some delightful little sandwiches. It will be like old times, and you can tell me all about what you have been doing and how you managed to… ahem… shrink."

Shaking his head, Russ said, "Not until I know where I stand. Did Shacklebolt send me to you?"

"Kingsley? No. I fear I have misled him into believing me in worse condition than I am. Not that I am in good condition – far from it. I wish to remain behind the scenes for as long as possible, both to give me more time to recuperate and to retain the element of surprise. No, the one who arranged this little side trip is McGonagall. She and I speak almost daily. Now please sit down. Looking up at you puts a kink in my neck."

Russ poured them each a glass of the mead and gave Dumbledore a small plate of sandwiches before settling onto one of the chairs with his own repast. "Monsieur Percival?" he said, smiling. "Where did you get that?"

"It is one of my names. Two in fact. Here, I am Mr. Brian Percival. I am sure they suspect it is not my real name, but the fiction protects them as well as me. We are all quite comfortable with it, and it is actually rather appropriate to the place."

"Where are we?"

"Use your powers of deduction, or rather induction, Sherlock, for I shall not tell you."

"French-speaking, so it could be France, Belgium, Luxembourg, or Switzerland, though my guess is France. A place where the name Brian, or the name Percival, is appropriate. I'll leave that puzzle for later. How are you doing? Shacklebolt said you nearly died."

"It is what happens when one drinks strange green liquids from mysterious basins. I am better than I was, and I am still showing improvement, so I may be even better yet. I hear that you had a rather sticky time of it as well."

"I don't remember most of it. If it's Remus you've talked to, then you know more about me than I do."

Dumbledore's eyebrows had shot up. "Remus? Not Lupin? Whatever is happening to you, Severus? Are you softening as you get younger?"

"I don't know. The world somehow looks different when you get a new pair of eyes. Or maybe it's because everyone treats me differently when they don't have to look at my face. Part of me wants to stay this way. Is that being shallow? Or selfish?"

"It is not shallow at all, Severus. You have had few pleasant experiences in your life. Take advantage of this one while you can. In the long run it will enrich you. Kindly do not forget, however, that the rest of us are still muddling along in the old world and may have need of you. Now, what have you got to report?"

"Horcruxes. They say you told Harry there were six of them. I think we have them. The diary was destroyed by Harry back in ninety-three. You destroyed the ring in July of last year. That alerted the Dark Lord, who took Ollivander and the wand we think was another Horcrux. That one would be with him. I've been told that at the same time Harry ordered Kreacher to leave the house at Number 12. The locket – did you know that the one you retrieved was a fake?"

"Yes, I have been told."

"Well, it had been hidden at Number 12 by Regulus Black, but once the house-elf was gone, it was no longer protected. Mundungus Fletcher took it and sold it to the barman at the Hogs Head, and Hermione and I stole it from him. Moody has it now."

"All the while I was drinking that disgusting liquid, the real locket was with Aberforth? I am mortified. I am more than mortified."

"The fifth Horcrux, the cup, has been incorporated, we believe, into one of the trophies in the trophy room and is still there. It's in a Ravenclaw case, but the colors of the trophy are also the colors of the shield of Peverell."

"Excellent! You have really outdone your self, Severus. Two are destroyed. Two are effectively in our possession. One is with Tom. What about the sixth?"

"That's why I wanted to talk to you, sir. Harry says that you told him that on October 31, 1981, the Dark Lord put a bit of himself into Harry, which is why, among other things, he's a parselmouth."

"I recall the conversation." Dumbledore concentrated on the cress sandwich he was nibbling at.

"He's also a legilimens, but he doesn't really know it."

"The thought had occurred to me, that if Tom went that night prepared to make a Horcrux, he may, in fact, have done so, though not the one he expected. You have not mentioned this to Harry, have you?"

"No, sir. That's why I wanted to talk to you."

"What did you expect me to say?"

Russ paused, then plunged ahead. "I wanted you to tell me the whole of the prophecy, for openers."

"I see. Very well, are you ready?"

"You're not going to argue? You're going to tell it to me just like that?"

"I do not see why not." Dumbledore recited softly, as something long since memorized and internalized:

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…_

_Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…_

_and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…_

_and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…_

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"_

Russ made Dumbledore repeat the prophecy several times before he was satisfied, then he took a long breath. "And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives – that's clearly not true."

"What do you mean?" Dumbledore's eyes were wide and innocent.

Rising, Russ began to pace. "It's true that the Dark Lord vanished for some years after marking Harry, but it's been more than two years now since he came back, and both have survived. This prophecy thing is balderdash."

"You forget that Harry may also be Voldemort. If he is a Horcrux, that is."

"But then either both live, or both die. The 'one or the other' thing is balderdash."

"I had not looked at it in quite that way before."

"Maybe you should."

Dumbledore bristled. "Are you calling my perception of the situation into question?"

"Are you claiming to be omniscient? Because I can dispute that claim, too."

"I claim nothing. I want the truth."

"What is truth? The prophecy says that the Dark Lord and the Chosen One can't live in the same time frame, but the reality is that the Dark Lord is living in the same time frame with all the known witches or wizards except people like Cedric Diggory or Amelia Bones."

"Interesting. Analyze this for me please, Severus."

Russ glanced at Dumbledore suspiciously, sensing that the older wizard was amused. "The prophecy was spoken in the latter half of 1979. The last line sets the time frame because it was spoken in future tense: will be born as the seventh month dies. And it will be soon, because of the word 'approaches.' If I really wanted to get picky, I'd ask which calendar we were referring to, because in the Buddhist lunar calendar the seventh month falls…"

"Severus."

"All right. As to the 'thrice defied' part, I really don't know. I would have thought James and Lily – or the Longbottoms for that matter – had defied him more than three times even before the prophecy was spoken. But I wasn't in a position to know or be counting. We've seen how the Dark Lord marked him as his equal, with Parseltongue and legilimency. One wonders how mediocre Harry would have been if the Dark Lord hadn't marked him." Russ picked up his glass and contemplated this satisfying thought as he sipped the mead.

"Given his parents, I am sure he would have had some talent," Dumbledore retorted.

"I would feel more comfortable if I were just sure he had the mythical power that the Dark Lord 'knows not.'"

"It is, I fear, a power you do not believe in."

"The love thing? Who does Harry love? Whose welfare does he place above his own so that he would give up his own happiness to let that other person be happy?"

"Harry would die for his friends."

"Dying is easy. It's living knowing the other person is happy and you'll never be even a small part of it that's hard."

Dumbledore remained silent, his hands suddenly quite still.

"That still leaves us," Russ continued, "with the part about 'either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.' Assuming the two are Harry and the Dark Lord, both are now living and have been for more than two years. The phrase 'either must die' is ambiguous and could be interpreted as 'one must die but the other doesn't have to,' or as 'each must die,' meaning that they are going to kill each other. At which point we could get into a long philosophical debate as to what constitutes living."

Russ paused and stared at his hands. "Do you think they're both going to die?" he asked.

"I certainly hope not. I should hate to lose Harry as the price we pay to rid the world of Voldemort," said Dumbledore.

"Does Harry have the slightest idea that he might be the sixth Horcrux?" Russ asked.

"I have not discussed the possibility with him. I am not sure that it is true that he is. In fact, until we destroy them we shall not be certain that any of the items we have identified as Horcruxes are, indeed, Horcruxes."

"I suppose we must live with the uncertainty, but I'd really rather not have anyone die. Well, except him, of course." Russ took a small box out of his pocket.

"What is that, Severus?"

"Polyjuice pills," Russ answered, and showed them to Dumbledore. "Neville and I developed them. I figured out how to put it in the capsules, but it took the two of us to get it to last longer than an hour. I took a three-hour one this morning because I was supposed to see Madame Pomfrey at lunch."

"You do have a knack for hitting me with large amounts of new information in a short time. One, you are working on potions with Neville Longbottom, the boy who does everything wrong. Two, Polyjuice now lasts longer than an hour and can be taken in pills. Three, why do you have to see Madame Pomfrey?"

"She checks my arm regularly to be sure it doesn't get infected again."

"Ah, yes. Remus told me. Severus, why do you not stay here with me for a day or two? I could let Professor McGonagall know, and you could change back into yourself. Talking to you as a fifteen-year-old American is a bit disconcerting. And the doctors here could look at your arm."

Russ didn't have to think long. "I'd like that very much, sir," he said. "Oh, and are we in the Champagne region? Maybe Troyes?"

"Very good, Severus! How did you guess?"

"Chrétien de Troyes wrote the story of Perceval and his encounter with the Holy Grail. You said using the name Percival was particularly appropriate."

A few minutes later, thankful that Moody had purchased school robes a bit too large for Russ, Snape was once again himself, cradling his left arm against his body.

"That's better," said Dumbledore. "Now I feel like I am talking to my Potions instructor again. Let me ask the healers to come in. They can check both of us." He pointed his wand at a bell rope and pulled it twice. "They should be here in a moment."

Snape rose when the healers arrived, as Dumbledore explained in French both Snape's transformation and the problem with his arm. One of the healers, a handsome older woman with white hair and stunning violet eyes, turned to Snape. "You will permit me to look at the arm, non?" she said, and pulled back the sleeve. "O la-la-la! It is not good at all. I believe that you have not been to your St. Mungo's Hospital. The one who worked on this has done not so good a job. But a healer has looked at it, too, non?"

"The one who originally took care of it was not a healer. A healer was brought in after a month, but she couldn't contact St. Mungo's."

"Well, we shall do our best. You will sit down in this chair, please, and lean back. Relax your body – so." She went over to Dumbledore. "And you, M. Percival, how are you feeling today?"

"Better, Doctor, better. I hope I shall not be a burden on you much longer."

"I shall be the judge of that. Open wide, now, and let me check your throat…"

An orderly entered the room with some potion vials and set them carefully on the table. When the doctor had finished with Dumbledore, she returned to Snape. "You will first drink this." Snape obeyed and was pleasantly surprised to find that the liquid tasted a bit like Camembert cheese. The doctor then poured the contents of another vial onto the scabby tissue of his arm and massaged it in. It stung at first, then began to feel warm. The two healers with the doctor started a low chant, and soon Snape was drifting in a trancelike state, feeling quite comfortable and relaxed…

"You will wake up now," the doctor said briskly, and Snape's eyes opened at the sound of her voice. His arm was bandaged and in a sling, and the healers were leaving the room. "That is quite enough being lazy for now. I shall look at it again this evening. Good day. Good day, M. Percival." Then the doctor was gone, too.

"How long…?" Snape started to ask.

"Half an hour. I was getting quite envious. They used to put me to sleep like that, but they say I do not need it anymore. Get ready for more visitors. They are coming to fit you for robes since I imagine you would rather not wear a schoolboy's uniform while you are here."

Snape was given his own room with his own canopied bed, his own windows opening on to a balcony, and a private bathroom. The clothing they brought was a belted black cassock with a black robe lined in silver, the fabric rich and luxurious to the touch, its effect heightened by the sling for his arm.

"My word, how dramatic!" was Dumbledore's comment when a refreshed Snape joined him again. "We shall have you on the stage as Cardinal Richelieu, Torquemada, or Cesare Borgia."

"Lovely," replied Snape. "Was there some deep, psychological reason that you named only villains?"

"It must be your penchant for vibrant colors. Why does no one ever look at you and think how nice you would look in orange or chartreuse?"

"That's disgusting, and you know it."

"One of my pathetic attempts at humor, I suppose."

"What do we do now?"

"We go for my afternoon stroll."

Dumbledore's afternoon stroll was in a wheelchair. This time he dismissed all the French attendants so that he and Snape could be alone in the formal garden that extended a couple of acres behind the chateau.

"You never do anything the common way, do you? Who arranged this? Madame Maxime?"

"Ah, dear Olympe," sighed Dumbledore. "She has such influence in this country. I have been positively swimming in luxury."

"Pity you can't walk, though. It's been four and a half months since you drank the potion. Can't they do anything?"

"First, I can walk, as I shall show you in a few minutes, just not fast and not far. I told Harry at the time that I did not believe the liquid was meant to kill, at least not quickly, but it was meant to resist attempts at cure. Part of it attacked the nervous system, specifically motor control. It's regenerating now, and soon I shall be as good as new. Another part was hallucinogenic. For weeks, while I appeared comatose, I had terrible visions of being punished by Voldemort."

"Yaxley and I recognized part of that. It seems to have recreated the execution of Regulus Black."

"Yes, Remus explained that when he told me about the locket being replaced. It seems it was a trap."

"The potion may have been specifically calibrated for you. That would have made it harder to cure."

"Not made by you, though."

"No, but possibly in my laboratory. Someone was using it without my permission, and the Dark Lord allowed me to seal it. By then the potion would already have been brewed, the trap perhaps already laid."

"Not by you." Dumbledore was pensive. "Did he suspect you might sabotage his plans? Was he suspicious of you?"

"It's possible. Bella certainly was. She had to be careful, though, as long as she thought she might need me to help Narcissa and Draco."

"Now that we have brought up the subject, you do realize that I must remain 'dead' insofar as the wide world is concerned. Much could be forgiven as having occurred in the heat of the moment, but merely pretending to kill me is not one of them."

"Forgiven? By whom?" Snape stopped, realization washing over him like a cold shower. "You evil, deceitful, wicked old man! You want me to go back!"

"Want? No, I do not want you to go back. But we certainly must be prepared for a wide range of scenarios…"

"Not you, too! It's all very well for you – playing dead in this posh palace with your French nurses, and your soft bed, and your afternoon strolls in the garden – but you know what he'll do to me…" Snape looked morosely around the garden.

"Actually, I do, having relived some of it repeatedly for a month. But really, Severus, what good is it for anyone if Harry ends up walking into the lion's den and getting himself killed? All our work for nothing, and all our future gone? Sending you back is not my first choice, nor my second, nor even my tenth, but I have to keep all our options open. Do not look so bleak, Severus. We have time to plan and prepare. And I was enjoying your company so much. Severus?"

Snape turned back to face Dumbledore. "You're right. We have to prepare for all eventualities, and you're not the first one to realize it. I've already discussed it with Shacklebolt, Moody, and the rest of the Order. They've decided. I have to go to San Francisco."

xxxxxxxxxx


	10. Chapter 10 – Costume Parties

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Costume Parties**

Two days later, Russ traveled back to England by a route similar to the one that had taken him to France. McGonagall had covered for him for the extra days he'd been gone, and Moody didn't suspect a thing. McGonagall had also told Luna and the others that Russ needed to be isolated in the hospital wing for a couple of days to run tests on his arm and start a new treatment. All in all, she had dealt with the situation in a highly satisfactory way.

Dealing with Mylor Sylvanus was a slightly different matter.

"Just let me get this straight, Alastor old boy. I'm to take this delightful young man to California and show him around, and you'll foot the bill? But I thought he was from California and knew it better even than I."

"Well, Mylor old boy, there is a little snag. You see, young Russell here is harboring a deep, dark secret that we expect you to keep quiet about for a while. In fact, I can't let you go with him unless you take an Unbreakable Vow not to divulge his secret until I give you permission."

"An Unbreakable Vow about a young man's dark secret? You're making this too intriguing, Alastor. But I really don't think I'm up to it. It is rather extreme, don't you think?"

"I'm giving you a month as the traveling companion and mentor of an impressionable fifteen-year-old, and you're quibbling about a little Unbreakable Vow?"

"Well, there is that. This Vow – it only covers certain things I can't say, correct? It doesn't restrict anything I might do?"

"You wouldn't be able to write it in a note, naturally, but the Vow would cover only the specific secret."

"Give me just a teeny moment to think… I'll do it!"

The Vow was between Sylvanus and Moody, while Russ acted as Bonder. It was short and as specific as Sylvanus could wish. "Now," he said as soon as they were done, "what's the secret?"

"I'm not going to tell you," Moody said. Before Sylvanus could protest, he added, "We just wait a few minutes, and we'll show you."

"Show me? How exciting. Why do we have to wait?"

"For the Polyjuice potion to wear off." Moody's mouth twitched with suppressed laughter at the sight of Sylvanus's shocked face.

"You mean that's… not…" Sylvanus stammered.

"No, it isn't."

Even as they talked, the transformation began. Russ's features contorted a little with the strain as he grew taller, his face thinned, and his hair and eyes darkened. Within a minute, the astounded Mylor Sylvanus was facing Severus Snape.

"You! But! You're… you're that strange boy from Slytherin house who was so good at hexes. And you became a teacher. And they say you…"

"What do they say?" Snape asked sweetly.

"That you, well… oh, dear… um… yes."

"Excellent!" Moody clapped Sylvanus on the back heartily. "I see you have this secret thing down pat."

xxxxxxxxxx

"I think you're just trying to get out of doing homework," Ron complained. "Why can't the rest of us leave when school gets boring."

"Weaseling out of my classes, you mean?" responded Russ, smirking as Ron winced. "And right before the first Quidditch match of the season, too. Just as things were getting really boring."

"You know, maybe it would be better if you did leave, and stayed away awhile. It's not like you're serving any useful purpose here, is it?" Ron pouted.

"I wish I was going to San Francisco," Neville sighed.

"I wish I was going anywhere," added Luna.

"Look, I've explained why it's necessary," Russ insisted to Ron. "Once the Dark… Voldemort starts noticing Harry, we're all targets. You lot have to practice occlumency, which is hard, but I have to get memories from a place I've never been before. Right now it seems like a vacation, but it may…"

"Save my life. I know. I just wish I could save your life by taking a trip to America."

"You've been very quiet," Russ said to Hermione and Ginny.

"I just hope," said Hermione, "that there are no earthquakes while you're there. They had a nasty one a few years ago. I remember the pictures of the fires, and that motorway that collapsed."

"I'll try to stay away from earthquakes."

"Are you taking a camera?" Ginny asked.

"Want some pictures?"

"I don't know what's there to take pictures of. That bridge, I suppose. Still, it seems like you should take pictures on a vacation."

"It isn't a vacation."

"Right."

Hermione had been thinking. "Where are you staying? A month could be expensive. Do you know any wizards there?"

"I don't, but Sylvanus does. He used to have a lot of friends in San Francisco. I get the feeling a lot of them are gone now, but he's arranged for us to stay with someone. He says it's near the ocean."

"Oh!" cried Ron. "You'll be at the beach all the time! Now I really do hate you!"

Long distance apparating, though much faster than traveling by broom, was always tricky, so Russ and Sylvanus went by shorter stages across the North Atlantic and through Canada, each carrying a suitcase with some clothing. They reached San Francisco at about seven in the morning on Sunday, the twenty-sixth of October, arriving next to a Dutch windmill in the northwestern corner of Golden Gate Park. The sound of the surf was quite loud, and Russ could smell the salt in the air.

"He's in a condominium across the street," Sylvanus said, pointing to an apartment complex that was only a couple of stories tall, but seemed to take up most of a city block. "One of the first to buy when it was new, and a marvelous view of the ocean. You have no idea how much property values have gone up since then."

They rang the bell, and after a bit a voice on the intercom said, "Yes?"

"Brendon, it's Mylor. I hope we're not too early."

There was no reply except the buzzer that opened the door, and the two climbed a flight of stairs to the apartment. Brendon, a tall blond man in his mid-forties dressed in midnight blue robes, was standing in the doorway of his apartment, and looked at the two appraisingly as they approached down the hallway.

"So this is your little friend."

"Don't be tiresome, Brendon. This is business. This particular young man is Russell Moody. Russell, this is Brendon Dale. Now step aside, dear, and let us come in."

Brendon moved back and opened the door wide for them. The interior of the apartment looked like the layout for a decorating magazine – very tasteful, full of paintings and accessories, but curiously impersonal. Russ was beginning to feel odd about the whole situation.

"This particular one? Why Mylor, how many do you have?"

"Only the one, but he's changeable. You'll see in about half an hour."

"I suppose if it satisfies your desire for variety… Well, I wasn't sure about sleeping arrangements. There's the second bedroom, which is quite large really, but there's also the futon out here."

"I'll take the futon. I think Russell will be much more comfortable with a room of his own."

Brendon's eyebrows shot up at this, but he refrained from commenting. Instead he led Russ to a room off a short hallway. "Why don't you just settle in here and freshen up from your trip? The bathroom is here. Have you eaten yet? I was waiting breakfast, but I can start now. The full English thing, I imagine, with eggs and bacon. Do you drink tea or coffee?"

"Coffee, thank you," said Russ. "I hope we're not too much of a burden for you."

"No trouble at all. Anything for an old friend. Now breakfast will take a while since I actually cook it. That magic junk doesn't have the same taste – you might as well eat at McDonald's. Maybe you'd like an omelet."

"That would be very nice, thank you."

Russ was left to himself and began unpacking his things. The room was pleasant and sunny, with a view across the highway to the Pacific Ocean. As he hung some clothing in the closet and folded other things into the drawers, Russ could catch a little of the conversation from the living room.

"I must admit, you surprised me with your owl. It's been what – three years? I had half a mind to tell you what I really thought. I mean, the chutzpah!"

"Now Brendon, I know I've behaved badly, but that little episode is over and done with. This really is business, and very exciting, except I can't tell you until he gives me leave – I'll explain when the time comes. And who was I to go to when I really needed someone except you?"

"Well just to let you know, you're being tolerated. But don't expect me to entertain. I have plans already, and I'm afraid they don't include unexpected visitors."

"We'll be quiet as church mice. We have quite a bit to do, in any case, so most of the time we'll be out of your hair. You just tell us if we're any trouble." The voices faded as the two went into the kitchen.

Russ made sure to rattle the doorknob as he left the bedroom, not wanting to walk into the kitchen unannounced. "There you are," said Brendon, handing him a steaming mug of coffee. "There's sugar and cream on the table, if you like. Mylor said you were going to 'change' in half an hour. He didn't go into detail. Shall we have breakfast now or after?"

"It's about fifteen minutes, now. It's Polyjuice. I assume you know…"

"My, when you say change, you really mean change! I had no idea. We'll start breakfast cooking now, and it'll be ready when you're done."

A few minutes later Russ went back into the bedroom and reemerged as Severus.

Once again Brendon's eyebrows shot up. "Now this is more like it. Not just another pretty face. More character, more interesting. Your tastes are maturing, Mylor. Still too young for you, though."

Snape froze in the kitchen doorway, totally at a loss as to how he should respond. Brendon glanced quickly from him to Mylor, whose face had turned crimson. "Oops," said Brendon. "I seem to have made a faux pas. I take it Mylor is not your type. I see that Mylor is so far from being your type, that you've only just realized what you walked into. My apologies. Let's start again from the beginning."

Brendon wiped his hands on a towel, then extended his right hand. "I'm Brendon Dale, and I'm very pleased to meet you."

Snape took the hand. "Severus Snape. Thank you for welcoming us into your home."

"Sit down. Enjoy breakfast. And now you can tell me what brings you here, because Mylor won't."

"He can't. He took an Unbreakable Vow not to tell anyone about it without permission. There seemed to be some question about his ability to keep a secret."

"Oh, Mylor, they do have you pegged! Unbreakable Vow! Why didn't I think of that before?" Brendon's attitude toward Mylor had softened considerably.

Snape quickly explained about needing mental images of San Francisco to thwart a legilimency probe into his assumed character's mind. He didn't go into detail about Voldemort, but Brendon was no fool.

"We've been hearing some scary stories coming out of Britain. I'll just assume this is a case where 'Don't ask, don't tell' has a valid application. Now, your persona is from St. Francis Wood and goes to St. Ignatius. You'll want to move around the City as the Russell character, so we could even get you into the school by pretending we want to enroll you. That shouldn't be too hard."

They spent the rest of the morning planning.

That afternoon they went to Golden Gate Park. The first thing Russ noticed was that neither Brendon nor Mylor had any trouble blending in with muggle society. They dressed casually but neatly, and Brendon insisted on taking public transportation. "No boy can grow up in the City without knowing all about the Muni."

At first Russ wondered why they had to take an electric trolley bus when Brendon lived across the street from the park, but as they rode block after block with endless trees and bushes to their right, and got off the bus two miles farther on with no end to the park in sight, he understood. "It's a hundred seventy-four acres larger than Central Park in New York," Brendon told him.

They walked through a large rose garden while Brendon went over the history of the park, how it had been all sand dunes, and all the trees were brought from various parts of the world and planted there, how it had become a tent city after the 1906 earthquake and fire, and how many different attractions were contained in it. They rented a boat at a large lake with an island in the middle, then had a brief picnic on the island, after which they walked to the Tea Garden and the Museum area.

"They have to rebuild that one," Brendon told Russ, pointing to the Egyptian-influenced architecture of the fine arts museum. "It was too badly damaged in the last earthquake to save. By the way, you should construct the story of where you were when the '89 earthquake hit. It isn't something one forgets. Maybe a rich kid like you would have been at the World Series game at Candlestick Park, even if you were only… seven years old when it happened."

All afternoon, Russ stored up information that he would be able to review back in England with the aid of a pensieve. Gradually the enormity of what he had to do dawned on him. He had to pack fifteen years of images and information into his head, and he had just under a month to do it. Luckily, Brendon liked to talk.

That evening after dinner, a completely new problem arose.

"What are your plans for Halloween?" Mylor asked Brendon.

"You're too late. I have a date. And it's not one where I could invite you along."

"You could change your plans. This is a kind of special occasion."

"And where will you be in two months' time? Back in Britain? Friday's an important day for me, and I'm not going to ruin future hopes to cater to someone who's going to dump me and run in three or four weeks. If you want a date for Halloween, why not take him?" And Brendon nodded toward Snape.

Snape looked from one to the other. There was a surreal quality to the situation, as if part of it were a dream, and the fact that Mylor and Brendon were so natural in it had tended to neutralize his reactions. It was now, however, becoming personal. "Wait a minute," he said, "don't I have something to say about this?"

"So sorry," Mylor replied. "We forget this is new to you. Would you like to come with me on Halloween night? It's always quite a party."

"You'll excuse me, I don't mean to be rude, but no, I don't think I'll go. It's not my sort of affair, I mean… It's not the sort of party I think I'd enjoy."

"Oh, everybody enjoys it, and lots of tourists come so you wouldn't be the only one. It isn't like a party at someone's house. It's a big Halloween street fair on Castro Street. The restaurants stay open, everyone wears costumes, there's music and dancing…"

"I don't dance. And I don't have a costume."

"Yes, you do. I saw you packing. You have that lovely thing they gave you in France. You could wear that and go dressed as a wizard."

"I think you'd enjoy it," Brendon added.

That evening after they all retired for the night, Snape looked for a moment at his bedroom door, then locked it before getting into bed.

The next five days were hectic as Russ and Mylor traveled all over San Francisco. They went to Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge, to the Embarcadero and the top of Twin Peaks. They crossed the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and visited the Civil War fort at the Bridge's base.

One whole day was spent wandering through St. Francis Wood, getting familiar with the streets and the houses. "We'll see about getting into one later," Mylor said. Brendon took it upon himself to decide that Russ's family were churchgoers, and selected St. Francis Episcopal with its Spanish colonial architecture. "We're going there on Sunday. There's something Lord What's-His-Name won't understand." Rich kids shop, so they visited the Market Street stores, Serramonte, and Stonestown.

By Friday afternoon, Snape was exhausted. And there were still three weeks to go. He' d let the Polyjuice wear off and was lying on the futon sofa, recuperating from a morning of riding cable cars. Brendon had left already to join his friends and his date in a big costuming pre-party party where they would make sure they all looked perfect for the night's festivities. Mylor was moping in the kitchen.

Around four o'clock, Mylor came into the living room and sat down. "I wish you'd reconsider the Halloween party," he said.

"Why is it so important to you?"

"Halloween's our biggest day. Back long ago, when we couldn't be so open about it, Halloween was the only day we could be ourselves, express ourselves with the costumes. I can't imagine being in San Francisco on Halloween and not going to the Castro District."

"I can't go to a thing like that. Don't you understand how uncomfortable I'd be? If it's just a big street fair, why don't you go by yourself?"

"Look at me. I'm over forty, I'm overweight. I'm pathetic. People like me go places like that alone when they're trying to pick someone up. Other people go places like that looking for people like me because they think we're so desperate we'll go with anyone for a night. If I go by myself, they'll be hitting on me all night, and I may get lonely enough that I'll say yes. If I'm with you, they'll leave me alone because they'll think we're together. All I want to do is have a couple of drinks, look at the costumes, listen to the music, dance a little…"

"I'm not dancing."

"Okay, no dancing. Would it help if you thought of yourself as my bodyguard?"

"I don't know…"

"Honestly, I don't want to be with you. I want to be with Brendon. He's the best thing that ever happened to me, but I was an idiot and didn't realize it. I went running off with someone else only to find out two weeks later that it was the biggest mistake of my life. I was ashamed to come back until you gave me an excuse. Now I have to get him to take me back. If I go by myself and he sees me, he'll think I'm cruising. If I'm with you – he knows that's not your world. It's like having a chaperone."

Snape sighed. Mylor looked so mournful, so pitiful, that it was impossible not to feel sorry for him. "All right," he agreed. "I'll go to the party with you."

"Great!" Mylor beamed. "You'll have a wonderful time."

October in San Francisco is not like October in northern Scotland. The weather was glorious and even well into the night the temperature would remain around a balmy sixty-five degrees. Severus wore the robes he'd been given in France with one of Brendon's formal pointed wizard's hats. Mylor borrowed a set of Brendon's robes, crimson and gold ("Forty-niner colors, you know – American football."), insisting Brendon wouldn't mind because he'd suggested the outing.

Then, around seven-thirty, Mylor headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Snape asked, suspicion rising in him.

"To the bus stop, silly. How else are we going to get there?"

"We could apparate."

"No, we couldn't. It's probably already so crowded we'd materialize into three people at once. Even if we tried several streets away, someone would see us. We can apparate back, but going there we take the bus. Come on! Lots of people will be out tonight. You'll be one of the most conservative."

He was right. Although they were the only ones in costume at the beginning of their ride, more and more revelers boarded along the way, and the Divisidero Street bus they transferred to had more costumed party goers than not. It was packed, and they had to stand.

The costumes were quite a variety, too. In addition to witches, skeletons, and devils, there was an assortment of cats, gypsies, pirates, a seventeenth century nobleman with long ringleted curls, and a small assortment of heavily made-up movies stars from the thirties and forties. Severus was beginning to feel that this wasn't so bad until the bus reached Castro Street and disgorged its passengers.

The first reveler to catch his eye was a Roman gladiator wearing sandals, a short, skirt-like garment of metal and leather strips, a metal breastplate, a helmet, and very little else. An angel walked by, dressed only in a skimpy shoulder bodice that supported a glorious six-foot long pair of feathered wings, and the tiniest, tightest garment that would keep him out of jail without really imposing modesty on him. Behind him was a tall young man with the body of an athlete wearing what looked like a baby's diaper.

Severus closed his eyes, feeling his face redden with embarrassment. "I can't stay here, Mylor. This was a mistake. Let's go back."

"No, no!" said Mylor. "You just have to get used enough to it to ignore it. Here, let's find a place to sit."

The sidewalks were full of tables and chairs, and the restaurants and cafes had their doors and windows wide open. The street was blocked to vehicles, and the party was in the street itself. Music floated down from dwellings above the shops, and the atmosphere on Castro was like a carnival from Market to 19th Street.

As Mylor steered Severus through the crowd looking for an empty table, Severus noticed a bride in a long, full white gown. The bride had a beard and mustache. That made him look more carefully at the movie stars and the chorus girls. "They're all men, aren't they?"

"Probably. If you see anyone in top hat, white tie, and tails, that's probably a woman. Here, sit here. I'll get us drinks. What would you like?"

"I really don't care."

"I'll use my judgment."

It took some time for Mylor to return with the drinks. About ten minutes after he'd gone, a soft voice whispered, "Waiting for someone?"

Severus looked up. A very pretty young woman with stunning legs dressed in a gossamer fairy's outfit complete with wings and wand was standing next to him. "I'm with a friend," Severus said. "He's gone for drinks."

"Let's hope he's a long time coming back then." She sat daintily on the empty chair and leaned across the table so he could smell the delicate scent of her perfume. "Because I just have this thing for magicians. Are you from around here?"

"No, it's my first time in San Francisco, actually. I'm a sort of a tourist."

"How sweet. I'll bet the goings-on here are all new to you."

"It is a bit of an eye-opener, I will admit."

Mylor came up then. He set down the drinks and jerked a thumb at the girl. "Move along now, fairy princess. This one's spoken for."

The 'woman's' voice dropped to a baritone. "Spoilsport," he said as he rose and flounced away. "It's getting so a girl can't have any fun anymore."

Severus rested his head on the tips of his fingers. "That was a man," he said, in shock. "I was letting a man flirt with me."

"That's what happens here. There's no harm in it."

"But he looked like a woman. A beautiful woman, in fact."

"The right makeup, the right outfit on the right person – you'd be surprised how many men look like women and how many women look like men. Check for the Adam's apple. It's a dead giveaway. And if she's wearing a ribbon choker around her neck, it's probably to hide the Adam's apple."

Severus sipped his drink. "It tastes strong. What is it?"

"Vodka martini. You've never had cocktails before, have you?"

"First time."

"Pace yourself. They catch up on you fast. Now, this is how you watch the crowd. The ones showing off their bodies, they're mostly cruising. Ignore them. Unless you're cruising too, they're not interested. Some are out just for fun, like the bride with the beard. They're for laughs. The true artists go for the complete illusion, and some are even professional entertainers in nightclubs. I like the clever costumes, the ones that are unique. The ones strolling by in the police uniforms – they're probably really police, though this party is generally very peaceful."

It took a while, and a couple of drinks, but Severus found that he could indeed ignore the more extreme costumes. He and Mylor started pointing out to each other ones they found particularly well done or unusual. One young man was made up like an old-fashioned black telephone, with a dial on his chest and a paper maché receiver resting across his head. Another wore a long, slim white gown with inflated tubes around the flared hem, and a round, crenellated white hat.

"Oh, look," cried Severus happily, "a chess piece. I get it! It's the White Queen."

"Hello, Mylor," said a passing pirate who turned out to be Brendon. "I see you convinced him to come." He looked at the martini glasses. "How many of those have you poured down him, anyway? I don't think British wizards know that a vodka martini is pretty much straight vodka."

"He'll be all right. I needed something to keep him from having a heart attack. He almost went catatonic when we got off the bus. Pull up a couple of chairs and introduce me to your friend. Severus? Severus, look. It's Brendon and his friend."

"Oh, hi, Brendon. Are you enjoying the party?"

"I see you are. This is Richard. Mylor and Severus. I'm buying this round."

"We're having martinis," said Severus. "Delightful drink. Russian, I think."

"No, you're not," Brendon said. "You're having coffee."

Brendon and Richard had arrived with a group and then separated. They were planning to stay to the end, which would be after two o'clock when the restaurants stopped serving drinks. It was now past eleven, however, and Mylor decided that Severus had had quite enough. "I think I'll take him home now."

The true effect of vodka is only felt when one tries to stand. When they got him to his feet, the others found Severus was more wobbly than they'd realized. Brendon and Mylor walked on either side of him, being careful of the arm in the sling, while Richard walked in front to keep the way clear. They weren't the only ones with a tipsy companion, and the little procession went forward in good spirits.

"Look over there," said Severus, pointing. "Soldiers fighting Indians. Should help the Indians, shouldn't we?"

What was happening was that two police officers were arresting someone in leggings and a feathered bonnet who was being disorderly. Brendon started to explain when he saw to his horror that Severus had his wand out and was aiming it at the policemen.

"Expelli-," Severus started as Brendon and Richard grabbed his right hand and wrestled it upward. "-armus!" he finished, shooting the spell harmlessly into the air.

"This is your fault," Brendon hissed to Mylor. "Get him home and into bed before he kills someone. And here – you hold onto his wand."

They found an empty doorway a couple of blocks further on, and Mylor apparated with Severus back to the apartment. There Severus fell asleep on the futon. Mylor covered him gently with a blanket, then went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and wait for Brendon to return home.

xxxxxxxxxx

"Do you have any idea how worried I was about you? I spent days wondering where you were. I even checked with the police and the county morgue."

"I left a note."

"Yes, and I found it eventually. But I only wore that outfit when I went out with you, so it took a while. Do you know who told me? Cataluña told me. I was depressed for months."

"I know it's no consolation, but he was a rat. I was miserable from the beginning, and then after two months he was gone, but I was ashamed to come back."

"I'd have slammed the door in your face."

"I wouldn't blame you…"

The soft voices filtered in from the kitchen to where Severus lay on the futon. He listened quietly for a moment, then suddenly pushed the blanket aside and clambered unsteadily to his feet. Brendon and Mylor were out in the living room in an instant helping him to the bathroom where he was sick to his stomach.

"Poor boy," Brendon murmured gently as they got him lying down in the bedroom, "you really aren't used to the fast-paced life are you? Don't worry, dear, vodka wears off after a while."

They nursed Severus all day, and by evening he was feeling well enough to have a light supper.

"We've decided you need to see more of California, so this next week we're driving you everywhere," Mylor announced. "Tomorrow after church we're going to see redwood trees."

"Driving? Not apparating?"

"If you're supposed to be a boy raised as a muggle, you have to have memories of driving around in a car."

"But…"

"Don't worry, dear," Brendon reassured him, "this is California. Here, we know how to drive."

Russ loved the church, the dark wood of the beams and pews, the adobe-like walls, the cloistered courtyard like a Spanish mission, and the beauty of the music and liturgy. "Come on," Brendon said as the congregation filed forward to the communion rail, "you have to see what it's like. Cross your arms in front of you like this and you'll get just a blessing, because you shouldn't eat or drink unless you really believe what's happening."

Russ did as he was told, fascinated by the ritual, noting that Mylor crossed his arms, but that Brendon took the wafer and wine. "Is this your church?' he asked as they stepped back into the noon sunshine.

"No. I've been here a couple of times, but more often I go to another one. This one is near where you're supposed to live, though, so this is the one you needed images of."

The trip north to the redwood grove was fun. Russ hadn't been in a car since his parents died, but his father's old car was nothing like Brendon's BMW. ("It's what every rich kid rides around in…") Nor had he ever seen trees as huge as the redwoods ("The biggest ones are much further north. Largest living things in the world. I don't count things that create new plants by sending out underground shoots.")

The next week was practically spent in the car. North to the 19th-century Russian fur-trading fort and south to Carmel and Monterey. They even drove the better part of a day to spend one night in Yosemite Valley and then drive back.

On Friday afternoon, Brendon had another surprise. "Wear your best, a suit if you have one. We're going out."

"Where?" Mylor asked.

"Why?" was Russ's question.

"The Ritz-Carlton and then the symphony. Michael Tilson Thomas is conducting. Oh, and we're going to meet your mother."

Russ put on the expensive suit and shoes he'd worn at Bill Weasley's wedding.

"My, we are elegant this evening," was Mylor's reaction. "Cat will love you."

"Cat?"

Brendon smirked. "Cataluña Belleza-Ortega. She'll tell you all about how her family's been here since Spanish mission days and how she's the rightful owner of half the Central Valley. You just ask her if it's true that the name of Lake Berryessa is a corruption of the name Belleza, and she'll love you for life."

The hotel was in the grand style, elegant and luxurious, downtown but protected from much of the noise by a traffic tunnel that diverted the cars below street level. While Brendon parked the car, Mylor took Russ to meet Cataluña in the lounge with its pale blue and rose decor and classic French furniture. She arrived some minutes after they did.

Ms. Belleza-Ortega was a handsome, dark-haired woman, impeccably dressed and completely at ease in the rich surroundings. "Ooo, we are robbing the cradle, aren't we?" was her first remark as they were introduced.

"Don't be silly, Cat. This is our mission and your job. You're going to be his mother."

"Sweet. I must have been just a child when he was born."

"Barely out of the cradle yourself, dear."

They exchanged gently barbed comments for a few minutes, then Cataluña raised her eyebrows in surprise, for Mylor's face had lit up like a sunrise. Turning, she saw that Brendon had just entered the room. As Mylor signaled to Brendon where they were sitting, Cat leaned over to Russ. "Have they been talking? Getting back together?"

"I think so."

"Good. They were always such a sweet couple."

The dining room was soft and warm with wall sconces and candlelight. There was some discussion over the menu.

"You cannot come from San Francisco and never have eaten Dungeness crab. It just isn't possible."

"We could order a tasting menu, that way he'd have small bits of a wide variety of things…"

Russ looked at the price and realized that the four of them might be spending $500.00 for one meal. It was a far cry from sleeping on church pews, and he wondered where they got the money.

"Now, dear, what does this mother of yours look like?" Russ showed her the photograph of the house and the woman. "Not too different. I can do this."

"Cat is an actress," Brendon told Russ. "And rather a good one, too. What do you have planned for us, love?"

"A friend in real estate. I've arranged this weekend to visit a couple of places in St. Francis Wood that are for sale. We can set up a whole series of vignettes in different rooms. If you like, we can bring in people from the repertory company. The children in particular are excited at the idea of staging 'real' memories."

Russ was curious. "Actors and actresses? Are they… like us? Wizards, I mean."

"No, dear, not at all. Perfectly normal theater people. What's that quaint word the British use… Midges?"

"Muggles," said Mylor.

"They know about me, of course," added Cat. "But then we're used to the unusual in the City."

"What about the International Statute of Secrecy?"

Cat laughed, a bright, silvery sound. "He's so sweet. I could just eat him up. Dear, we're in the United States. That statute is unconstitutional."

For the life of him, Russ could not think of a counter-argument.

Saturday and Sunday were like a photo shoot without the cameras. The theater group arrived at a beautiful home in St. Francis Wood with their costumes and makeup, and proceeded to stage dinners, birthday parties, quiet evenings at home, preparing school projects, a couple of parental fights, and the day the dog knocked over an expensive vase. Russ discovered that they had a Japanese maid and hired a gardening company to take care of the grounds. He was beginning to enjoy being rich. When they left the house, it was immaculate. Not a trace of their presence remained.

The rest of the week was spent in San Francisco, and Russ was taken to St. Ignatius school where Mylor discussed the possibility of enrolling him there with the school's Jesuit president, their name for a headmaster. Brendon and Russ were allowed to tour the school, which was more like a college than a high school.

Russ was beginning to wish that this was, indeed, his real life, and that Hogwarts was just a bad dream.

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_Saturday - Sunday, November 15 - 16, 1997_

By the end of that week it was raining. From Thursday through Sunday it poured without pause. "Don't complain," Brendon insisted. "This is our water for all next summer. There's an El Niño in the Pacific. We may have a good supply of rain this winter."

Saturday evening they had an early dinner at a little place near the end of Geary Boulevard that Brendon said served the best seafood in the City. "If we get there before five o'clock, we'll get a booth. After that we wait. Go as yourself, not as Russ." The restaurant didn't take reservations. If you waited, you eventually were seated. Meanwhile they served free glasses of wine to the people in line. It was a relaxed and cheerful crowd, and the fish was, indeed, superb.

They'd decided that Russ had seen all he needed to see in San Francisco. The next day he was returning to Hogwarts – alone. Mylor and Brendon were together again, to the delight of all their friends, and Mylor confessed to being happier than he'd been in all the three previous years.

"If you hadn't reminded Moody about our meeting, this wouldn't have happened. I owe you one, big time, as the Americans say. If you need anything, let us know. And if you're ever looking for a place to vacation, you're always welcome."

Sunday morning, Russ went to church again with Brendon and Mylor, then collected his suitcase and began the long series of apparations that would take him back to Moody's home in England. He arrived late in the afternoon.

"What are you doing back so soon?" was Moody's first reaction. "Couldn't take it, eh?"

"They _happen_ to be," Snape replied, having turned back into himself for the evening, "a perfectly _lovely_ couple, and _much_ nicer than _some_ of the people I know."

"Are you joking, or have you really learned to talk like that?"

"Barbarian!"

Snape and Moody spent the evening reviewing his experiences and looking through photos. "There's a lot I'll have to review in the pensieve. So much happened so fast that it was hard keeping track of it."

Early the next morning, Russ apparated with Moody back to Hogwarts. It was a cold, gray day with frost in the air, and Russ missed California more than he would admit. Things were made a bit better by the look on Luna's face when he entered the Great Hall, still in time for some breakfast.

"You're back! We weren't expecting you until next week! Did everything go all right?"

"Fabulous! Considering the circumstances, that is." Russ remembered in time that he was supposed to have gone to California for his parents' divorce proceedings. He'd spent half an hour in a lawyer's office and a quick trip to Superior Court to garner precisely those memories, but it had seemed minor in the whirl of everything else. "I think my mom's going to get custody." This last was for the benefit of the other Ravenclaws, Eledora MacAlvoy included, who were all pretending not to be listening.

"But that would mean you'd leave Hogwarts." said Luna, playing along.

"Right. And go back to California, where I belong."

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"What do you mean, where you belong!" Luna accosted Russ accusingly on the lawn outside the castle. The Gryffindor four approached near enough to partake of the argument. "You sound like you didn't want to come back!"

"Truth? You want the truth? I didn't!"

"Bet you enjoyed being a rich kid again! Did you eat patay di foy grass every night and ride around in a Rolls Royce!"

"I happen to like pâté de foie gras, and it was a BMW! And they were nice! They talked to each other – more important they listened to each other – and people who're different are still accepted without having to change!"

"How different?"

Russ and Luna stared at each other, tempers blazing, and neither flinched. "More different than you'll ever be," Russ answered. Then he mellowed a touch. "You'd like it in California. You'd fit right in. In California, you're perfectly normal."

"Are you?" Luna asked suddenly.

"I don't know," Russ answered. "I'd like to be."

"Are you two fighting?" asked Ron, coming up at that moment. "'Cause if you are, it's spooky. Not like you at all."

"He," declared Luna, "would like to stay in California. It appears California is better than Hogwarts. It appears California is better than Britain."

"Really?" said Ron. "How better?"

"The weather for one," Russ replied. "On Halloween it was so warm people were out in the street without any… jackets. No jackets at all. And then everyone's tolerant of everyone. I met an actress – a witch – and all the other actors knew she was a witch, and they didn't care. And the wizards there mingle with muggle society, and no one notices because they know how to do it."

Hermione was listening carefully, as was Neville.

"And they're not afraid to behave like muggles, either. We could have apparated to Yosemite, but you know something? The drive was fun. And beautiful. One of the wizards took a train across the United States once, and for three days he was totally free, totally disconnected from his normal time and space. I wish now I'd flown in an airplane so I could feel that way for ten hours, at least. There's a whole different world out there, and we're all locked into our little cubbyholes…"

"What about fighting against Voldemort?" Ginny asked accusingly. "Doesn't that mean anything?"

"That's one of the great things. They're not worried about Voldemort, but they know we are, and they were willing to help me even though it didn't affect them. They came out to help me, wizards and muggles, and they acted like I was doing them a favor by giving them the chance. You have no idea how nice people were to me."

"You know," said Hermione, "people in Britain can be nice, too."

"I suppose," Russ responded. "I mean, when I was growing up and we had problems at home, people around us helped as much as they could. It wasn't much because they were as poor as we were, but they were there to help."

"You were poor?" Hermione said. "I didn't know that."

Russ shrugged. "It's not important. But the people who helped my mother, I mean, they all knew us. We lived in the same village and grew up together. But the people in San Francisco didn't know me. They'd never seen me before."

"What about Mr. Sylvanus?" asked Neville.

"Okay, some of them knew him, and they knew his partner. So they helped me because…"

"His partner?" asked Ginny.

"Yes, Brendon. They… Mylor and Brendon… they were… friends before, and they wanted to… get back together… and…"

"This sounds complicated," Luna suggested. "Why don't we leave the details 'til later and go to class?"

"Good idea," said Russ.

So it was double Care of Magical Creatures with Hufflepuff, where Russ learned that his flobberworms had either died or gone into hibernation. The class, in any case, had advanced to studying semi-magical creatures such as snakes, spiders, and frogs, that could be used in potions or to feed to other magical creatures. Hagrid was sympathetic to Russ's problems.

Not so Professor Trelawney in Divination, who apparently took Russ's long absence as a personal affront and began to predict bizarre and painful demises for him.

"Such a truncated life line, Master Moody –" they had advanced to palmistry "– I suspect that you are not long for this world. And the head line – it is practically buried under the heart line – or is it the other way 'round now that I look at it more carefully – but in either case it is a sign of lack of contact, of isolation and antisocial tendencies. I fear you will die young and unmourned, my dear boy."

After that morning, lunch, Herbology, and Potions were a welcome relief, and by the end of the day Russ felt as if he'd never left Hogwarts, as if Brendon, Mylor, and San Francisco were all just a pleasant dream he'd had over the weekend.

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	11. Chapter 11 – A Time for Answers

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: A Time for Answers**

Other lessons, unofficial ones, continued. Russ now had five students to tutor in occlumency, since Ron and Ginny agreed that it was a necessary skill to have. The two best were Luna, who turned out to have excellent control of her thoughts, and Neville, whose instinct to hide extended into his mind and helped him understand instantly the concept of doors and curtains. Ron and Ginny were far too purely Gryffindor to really get the hang of it, always wanting to fight back. Hermione struggled with the curse of being too analytical.

"Analysis is a superb tool in life," Russ told her, "but sometimes you just have to let go."

"But if you let go, then you're not in control anymore."

"You'll never be in control all the time. There are people and situations out there that are immensely stronger than you are. If I'd tried to be in control all the time, I'd have died years ago. Neville has the right idea. When faced with overwhelming power, surrender what you can, hide the rest."

"Don't you mean hide what you can and surrender the rest?"

"Good heavens, no. Give him everything you've got. Every useless, irrelevant, trivial piece of information in your brain – hand it over. Bury him in undisciplined minutia so he needs three days to sort it out. Why make life easy for him?"

Hermione was laughing now. "I think I'm beginning to understand. Thanks."

Russ had missed the first game of the Quidditch season while he was in San Francisco. Gryffindor 'd won. "Of course," Russ informed Ron blandly. "Slytherin lost its Seeker over the summer. They had almost no time to find and train a new one."

"Gryffindor lost its Seeker, too!"

"Oh? Who was Gryffindor's Seeker in last year's last game?"

Ginny, who was listening to the conversation, turned her head waiting for Ron's answer.

"Well, that was only because Harry was on detention because of old Snape. We were always expecting him to come… What?"

The others were snickering, and even Russ looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Think who you're talking to," prompted Hermione.

Ron blushed and stammered, "I didn't mean…"

"I know," said Russ. "Sometimes I forget, too."

It was Ravenclaw against Hufflepuff, and all six of them sat in the Ravenclaw stands to cheer on the blue and bronze. That was when they discovered Russ's rather distressing habit of cheering for the bludgers.

"Left!" he was yelling at one point as Ron tried to hide in his cloak, "Left! There's a Beater after you! Go for the Keeper!"

"He's an American," Ginny explained to the students around them. "He doesn't understand the game."

Hufflepuff won, and Ron and Ginny dragged Russ from the Ravenclaw stands in hasty retreat. Luna, on the other hand, seemed to have enjoyed the game immensely.

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The weather, already cold and frosty, turned to snow as December advanced and the Christmas break drew nearer. The break would be a long one – the train was leaving on Sunday the fourteenth. More than half the students were staying since, with the steady stream of random attacks in the wizarding world, their parents felt them safer at Hogwarts than at home.

Russ and Neville had finished and bottled a batch of Professor Lupin's wolfsbane potion the Sunday before end of term, and went to the Great Hall, which was being used as a study hall because several of the usual rooms were designated for OWL and NEWT tutorials.

"There's a Hogsmeade excursion next Saturday," Ron announced as soon as they arrived. "We're letting Harry know. Are you going to join us this time?"

"If he wants me, I don't see why not. There aren't a lot of secrets anymore. Are you staying for the break?"

"Me and Ginny are leaving. The family's going to Katmandu. Everyone else is staying, right?" Ron looked around, particularly at Hermione and Russ. He looked as if he would really rather not go to Katmandu.

They met at the Hog's Head and went upstairs to a private room. "You're still hanging around Hogwarts, I see," commented Harry.

"You're still running around the country doing – whatever it is you're doing, I see," responded Russ. "I think what I'm still doing has uncovered more than what you're still doing."

"Where's the fifth Horcrux?"

"Probably at headquarters."

"Where's that?"

"I can't tell you." When Harry glowered, Russ continued, "Where's the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Number…" Harry started automatically, then stopped. Try as he might, he couldn't finish the address. He couldn't even start the address. He looked at Russ quizzically.

"Luna and Neville don't have the secret," Russ explained. "You can't say it in front of them any more than I can tell you the location of headquarters."

"So how do we find the Horcrux if we can't go inside?"

"Maybe," suggested Hermione, "we could get that Death Eater to help us. The one who works for Moody – Yaxley."

Harry barked a short laugh. "Pity we don't have all the Death Eaters working for Moody."

"You know," Russ mused, "that might not be a bad idea. I'll bet a couple of them would love to be given a way out of the mess they're in."

"Like your pal Bella?"

"No, but maybe Lucius Malfoy. After what the Dark Lord did to his family…"

"You think he loves them?"

_There's no such thing as love_, the Snape inside Russ thought, yet how did one define the bond that linked Lucius to Narcissa, that kept her spiritually at his side when he was hundreds of miles away, that prompted her to alienate Bella, the only person really in a position to help her, in his defense? "Yes, as much as anyone loves anyone, I think he loves her, and she him."

Russ could tell, by the looks that passed between Harry and Ginny, and Ron and Hermione, that they didn't believe what they felt for each other could be shared by Lucius Malfoy. _But you weren't there during their clandestine meetings when their parents were keeping them apart. You didn't watch them together. I did._

Getting Harry's attention again, Russ said, "There are a couple of things I've been meaning to ask you. First – where did you put my Potions book?"

"That book! Your spell nearly made me kill…"

"My spell did nothing without your will behind it. Nobody asked you to use those spells."

"He was going to use a Cruciatus curse on me."

"How do you know?"

"He started to say it."

_And you were fast enough to get off another spell before he finished? Only if you read it in his mind first_. "Couldn't you have used Expelliarmus or Protego or some other spell? You had to use one you'd never tried? I remind you, it is my book."

"It's in the Room of Requirement, in a cupboard. I put a bust of a warlock on top, with a wig and a tiara on its head, so I could find it again."

"I think I could spot that. Second – do you have with you the note you found with the fake locket?"

"Sure. I always have the locket, and the note's in it. Here."

Russ took the parchment and opened it slowly. It had been written by Regulus, and Regulus had been a friend. He read the words carefully several times. "I have to learn more about what Regulus did and thought."

"Why?"

"There was no more devoted young Death Eater than Regulus, and yet what he discovered made him want to destroy the Dark Lord. What better way to turn other Death Eaters away from the Dark Lord than through the testimony of Regulus Black?"

Harry snorted. "You're a fine one to talk about Regulus Black. Aren't you responsible for getting him killed, too?"

"Who told you that? Sirius?"

"He didn't have to. It was pretty clear. You led Regulus into becoming a Death Eater, and that's what got him killed."

"That son of a…" Russ stopped. It was impossible to fight against a dead Sirius, but the sense of injustice was overpowering, and he wheeled and strode toward the door, his movement and posture suddenly exactly like Snape's. Hand on the latch, he paused and turned back. "Can you stay here for a couple of days? Or return on Monday?"

"Why?"

"I'm going to make Remus come and talk to you."

"Why not today? Does your 'persuasion' take two days?"

There was another pause, then Neville said quietly, "Harry, today's the full moon. Professor Lupin can't go anywhere until Monday."

Harry considered for a moment. "I'll come back on Monday. What time?"

"After supper. We'll go to the shack and I'll signal you when it's safe to apparate."

"Can we be there, too?" asked Hermione.

"I don't see why not, as long as Harry agrees."

"Yeah. Everybody come. That way we'll all get the same story."

Russ smiled a grim smile. "It's about time."

Leaving the other five with Harry, Russ returned to the castle and went straight to the Room of Requirement. It took a little searching through the piles of discarded objects to find the cupboard topped by a warlock in unlikely headgear, but when he did, the Potions book was inside. Russ was a little upset that Potter had bound it in a new cover, but he'd known that for several months. Perhaps there was a way to retrieve the original cover and restore it to its proper place.

On a sudden impulse, Russ pulled out his wand and murmured the spell Peculiaris. Everything around him vanished, including the copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_, even though he could still feel it in his hands. That his book should be the property of the Dark Lord was a depressing thought, and Russ sat for a moment turning the invisible pages. Then he stopped and looked more carefully.

Words were dancing in the air with the movement of his hands. Tiny words scribbled in miniscule handwriting in black ink on the invisible parchment pages. Russ smiled, and this time it was a real smile. The book belonged to the Dark Lord. His own ideas did not. _He doesn't own all of me. He never did._

Russ talked to Lupin at lunch on Monday.

"I really don't see why we have to rehash the past," Lupin protested. "It's over and done with."

"If it were over and done with, it wouldn't be a problem, but I'm facing it today. I'm being accused today of things I didn't do seventeen years ago. On Saturday Harry told me to my face that I was responsible for the death of Regulus Black."

"Where would he get that idea?"

"Where do you think?"

Lupin agreed, and during supper Russ was nervous and edgy as he waited for the others to finish eating and head for the Whomping Willow.

"Look at him," he said to Luna. "Just sitting there chatting with Professor Flitwick like he had nowhere else to go. He's delaying on purpose."

"Why would he do that? And why are you so impatient?"

"I took a short term pill. I want to be myself during this conversation. But it's going to wear off soon, and if I take another pill I'll have to wait an hour to change back. Look, I'll meet you in the tunnel inside the Willow. Lupin knows how to open it."

Russ hurried out of the hall into the snowy dark, and made his way down to the Willow and into the tunnel.

They were five that evening, going through the tunnel to meet Harry, for Ron and Ginny had left on the train the day before. With no classes to keep him busy, Russ had spent a long, frustrating day, but they'd really had to wait until nightfall to go to the Willow so that they wouldn't be seen. Now tiny Lumos spells guided them in the darkness, and when they reached the Shack, Snape made sure the curtains were closed to prevent anyone in Hogsmeade from seeing the light. One gleam signaled Harry, and a moment later he was with them in the upstairs room.

"Hello, Harry," said Lupin. "It's good to see you again. Now, Severus, what did you want me to say."

"I'd like to start with something that four of us witnessed three and a half years ago in this very room. Do you remember that evening?"

"Vividly."

"Good. Now, you were standing here, and Black was here. Weasley was on the bed. Potter and Granger were here, and I had just come up the stairs wearing Potter's invisibility cloak. You were explaining how you'd become a werewolf, and how your three friends became animagi. Right so far?"

"Yes, that's what I recall as well," Lupin said. Harry and Hermione just nodded.

"Now," continued Snape, "the two things I wish to discuss are your comments about why I disliked James Potter, and the nature of the trick Sirius Black pulled when he told me how to get into the tunnel."

"I don't recall the exact words."

"I do," said Hermione. "You said Professor Snape was jealous of Harry's father's Quidditch ability. That's why he disliked Harry's father the most."

Saying nothing, merely turning his head, Snape regarded Lupin coolly. Lupin blushed scarlet. After a moment Snape spoke. "I was jealous of someone's Quidditch ability? You couldn't come up with a better excuse than that?" Lupin didn't answer. Snape continued. "Also, you said that Black told me about the knot on the Willow because he thought it would be 'amusing.' Potter, you referred to the incident as a 'joke.'"

"What do you want me to say?" Lupin asked.

"I want you to tell the truth. Why did Black give me the information about the Willow?"

"He wanted to kill you. He wanted me to kill you." Lupin turned to Harry and Hermione. "Severus didn't glimpse me at the end of the tunnel. He came into the shack, and I attacked him on the stairs. If James hadn't come in then, I would have killed him. You see, James was prepared to face a werewolf – Severus wasn't. James said Severus was in shock, and probably wouldn't have been able to defend himself in time. I was horrified when I found out what had happened, and I apologized to Severus as soon as I had the chance. It wasn't a joke, Harry. It was… in deadly earnest."

"You lied to me," Harry said quietly. "How many other things have you lied to me about?"

"It wasn't a lie. It wasn't intended to be a lie…"

"But it wasn't true," said Hermione.

"Don't be too hard on Remus," Snape said. "He has a congenital weakness. He can't bear to make people feel bad about themselves. He didn't want you to feel bad about your father, so instead of telling you all the things James really did, he told you I was jealous. Having just realized that Sirius hadn't murdered your parents, he didn't want Sirius to feel bad, so he treated a real murder attempt as a harmless prank. What would you have said, Remus, if you'd known I was listening? At some point you have to upset someone. Now, tell Potter why Sirius wanted to kill me."

"He thought you were influencing his brother to become a Death Eater."

"That's what Sirius always told me, every time he threatened me with grievous bodily harm. He wanted me to stay away from Regulus."

"It wasn't true, though," Lupin said, speaking directly to Harry now, "and we tried to tell Sirius, but he wouldn't listen. He thought that he could get Regulus to be like him if he could remove evil influences, and he thought Severus, with all his fascinating hexes and jinxes, was the biggest influence, but Regulus was deep into the Death Eater crowd before he even got to Hogwarts. The whole Black family was. Sirius was the only one who seemed to be different. Don't you see, Harry? That's why it was possible for me, for everyone, to believe that Sirius had betrayed James and Lily, and that he had escaped from Azkaban to murder you. Because he'd done things like that before. He came from a family of Death Eaters, and he'd tried to kill people before."

"Why didn't you tell me this earlier?" Harry spat at him.

Lupin looked miserable. "You were too young. I didn't want to hurt you."

In the silence that followed, Lupin spoke again. "But you already knew this, Harry. When you asked about the time James and Sirius attacked Severus with the Levicorpus spell. You knew then that there was more than Quidditch jealousy between them. Why are you so angry now?"

It was Harry's turn to look embarrassed. "I didn't put the two things together. I guess I forgot about what you'd told me here."

"Cute," said Snape. "What else haven't you put together, Wonder Boy?"

"You know," said Neville sharply, "that's why it's so easy for people to believe bad things about you – because you're always so nasty."

"That's right," Lupin joined in, "and you were particularly nasty to Neville. You remember that boggart incident? I might not have made fun of you so much if you hadn't just humiliated Neville in front of me and the whole class for no reason."

"It seems to me," said Hermione, "that as long as we're forcing people to be honest about themselves, maybe you should be honest about yourself, too."

"Neville," said Snape softly, "was the worst potions maker I have ever seen in my life, and came close to incinerating the classroom and everyone in it on more than one occasion through sheer incompetence."

"Which for some reason doesn't stop him from assisting you with my monthly potion now." Lupin smiled at Neville, then returned to Snape. "Why don't you tell the truth, Severus? What did you have against Neville? And against Harry? From what the students have told me, you were worse toward them than anyone."

"It was Lily, wasn't it?" said Hermione. "If Harry hadn't been born, Lily would still be alive."

"I remembered what you said." Harry spoke quietly in the stillness that followed Hermione's insight. "I thought about them on Halloween. I commemorated their deaths."

Snape felt his face grow ashen, and then turn red with shame, for the past Halloween Lily had been perhaps the furthest thing from his mind. He went to the bed and sat down, cradling his forehead in his hands. He felt sick.

"It's worse than that," Snape said finally. "If Potter had been born one day later, or one week later the way he was supposed to, Lily would still be alive and Longbottom would be dead." No one moved, no one breathed, as he continued. "The Dark Lord had us monitor the births. He was looking for a baby born near the end of July. The word was that the Potters were expecting in August, so when Longbottom was born on the thirtieth, we were sure he was the baby. Then Potter was born ahead of time the next day. The Dark Lord had to choose which baby he thought the prophecy concerned, and he chose Potter. I'd hoped it would be Longbottom."

Snape looked over at Neville, who was watching him with enormous eyes. "You have no idea how fervently I hoped that you would be a great wizard, to prove that the Dark Lord made the wrong choice and went after the Potters in error. But every mistake you made in class merely emphasized that he'd been right, that the prophecy had been about Potter all along. So in a way, I killed Lily."

"Why did you tell him?" Harry whispered.

"I was afraid. He sent me to Hogwarts to get a teaching job, and I failed. When I got back to headquarters, he punished me. I thought he was going to kill me. I had to give him something, anything, to appease his anger. I gave him the prophecy, and he forgave me."

"Couldn't you have been stronger?" Hermione asked. "For Lily?"

"I didn't know it was about Lily. She wasn't even pregnant yet. I don't know if that would have made a difference at the time. I hope so. But I was nineteen, and I was scared."

"If you were so afraid of Voldemort," said Luna, "why did you become a Death Eater?"

"I wasn't afraid at first. Quite the contrary. The Death Eaters protected me. You didn't see the entire memory in the pensieve, Potter, but the one who stood up to your father and Sirius was Bella Black. And when Sirius and a couple of his friends went after me in seventh year, it was Regulus who stopped them."

"And now," said Hermione, "we have to find out why Regulus Black decided he didn't want to be a Death Eater any more."

"We need to watch the time," said Snape, "and get you back before curfew."

"Not really," Lupin laughed. "I told Flitwick they'd be with me, and he'll tell McGonagall."

They found a table and enough chairs so that with Snape and Luna sitting on the bed, they could all sit down. Lupin conjured parchment, quills, and ink.

As they were making the preparations for the discussion, Neville edged next to Snape. "Was he… Voldemort… really watching for me to be born?"

"He was. For twenty-four hours you were the most important wizard baby in Britain."

"And were you really hoping I was the Chosen One?"

"With all my heart."

"Wow!" Neville settled himself at the table, oddly content with the evening's revelations.

"This," said Snape, jotting quick notes on the parchment in his small, spidery handwriting, "is what we know so far. Regulus Black discovered that the Slytherin locket was a Horcrux, stole it, and intended to destroy it. He was apparently captured and executed before he could accomplish that because the locket still exists and we have it in our possession. He apparently hid it in his own home, and it seems his father was aware of it because of the extraordinary precautions he took to safeguard the house. For me, two things stands out. First, neither Regulus nor Orion ever told Sirius about the locket, and second, despite his own affinity for the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters, Orion never revealed the whereabouts of the locket to Voldemort.

"We also know that Regulus's connections to the Death Eaters were made very early and he was probably one of those who became a Death Eater before he finished his seventh year at Hogwarts. It is possible that he was the one who placed the cup Horcrux in the trophy case, or at least knew of it. This would have been before he learned of the locket Horcrux."

"How much younger than you was Regulus Black?" asked Hermione.

"Almost two years. He was first year when I was third."

"So Voldemort sent you to become a teacher during Regulus's last year, and was furious when you failed?"

"That's right."

"Because after Regulus left Hogwarts, there would be no one left to guard the cup Horcrux. Maybe that's why he wanted you here. We were talking about this before. Was there any other Death Eater qualified to be a teacher?"

"No. I was the only one with even a prayer of getting a job."

"No wonder he was upset." Hermione thought for a moment. "Couldn't he have told Regulus to bring the cup with him when he left Hogwarts?"

"Dumbledore told me," said Harry, "that he wanted to put the Horcruxes in places that had special meaning for him. I guess he'd really want to keep that Horcrux at Hogwarts."

"It is one of the safest places," added Lupin. "Even without someone guarding it, it's probably safer here than anywhere."

"Our problem is that we know nothing else. We can't even speculate without more information." Snape thought for a moment. "Except for Slytherin house, where he lived for seven years, and his own home, I wouldn't even know where to start looking."

"Then it seems clear," said Harry, "that we start with Slytherin house and Number… his own home. I can go to the house. Can you search Slytherin?"

"I doubt it. I can't go there as Russ Moody because he's Ravenclaw, and I can't risk anyone seeing me as myself. If there were just a handful of students staying over the holidays one of you might try with Polyjuice potion, but with so many you wouldn't know how to behave, and in any case you wouldn't know where to look."

"Could you go in as a Slytherin student?" asked Luna.

"I wouldn't know how to behave either, and Madame Pomfrey might have something to say about using double doses of Polyjuice, but… I know someone who could go in, and who could have backup when he does – Draco Malfoy."

To Snape's surprise, Harry had no objection to bringing in Draco. "I listened to him on the tower, remember. He, at least, didn't want to kill Dumbledore."

"Harry," Luna reminded him, "Professor Snape was following orders."

"And considering," added Snape, "that what I was asked to do was necessary to protect the school, whereas the green potion Professor Dumbledore drank was a trap set by Voldemort…"

"Severus, that was uncalled for!" snapped Lupin.

"Potter has to get used to not being coddled, don't you, Potter? 'Oh, Lord Voldemort, you have to be nice to me because I'm still so young and an orphan to boot…'"

"Severus!"

"You know me, Remus. Did I ever initiate an attack against you? If you don't attack me, I leave you alone. You tell us, Potter. Do you need to be coddled?"

"I don't need coddling."

"Good. Expect retaliation when you attack me, and we'll both know exactly where we stand." The two glared at each other for a moment, Snape forcing himself to shut down against both Lily's eyes and a probe that didn't come. It was in that moment that Snape realized he had an opportunity to allow more of the team access to Dumbledore's information without actually violating Dumbledore's need for secrecy. Not taking his eyes from Harry's, Snape spoke. "Now, if you are not totally controlled by your emotional reactions, I have one more request for information from you."

Potter raised his eyebrows in surprise, but said nothing.

"I'd like you to tell me the whole prophecy. The one in the Department of Mysteries. The one I heard only part of."

The response was halfway between a laugh and a snort. "We start fighting, then you want a favor. You have more nerve…"

"Information in the common battle isn't a favor, it's a tactical and strategic necessity. You didn't seem to mind talking to me when it was information you wanted."

"What information?"

"About your mother."

"That wasn't…" Harry paused and regarded Snape speculatively. "Change into the other one. Change into Russell Moody. I'll talk to him."

There was another short battle of wills as the two locked eyes in mutual dislike, then Snape shrugged and pulled the bottle of Polyjuice pills from his robes. "And to think, Potter, that you can be so easily swayed by the superficial. Even when you know it's a facade."

"Is it?" Harry asked quietly. "Are you sure that's all it is?"

Snape didn't answer. Instead he swallowed one of the pills and turned away from them to face into a corner while he transformed into Russ. When the change was complete, he slipped the sling into his robes and confronted Harry again. "Better?" he asked.

"Much." Harry glanced around, took a deep breath, and recited:

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…_

_Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…_

_and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…_

_and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…_

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…_

Russ made Harry repeat the prophecy, primarily for the benefit of the others, then he, too, took a long breath. "And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives – obviously that's not true."

"What do you mean?" Harry was clearly puzzled.

"The Dark Lord vanished for some years after marking you, but it's been more than two years now since he came back, and both of you have survived. I see no reason why you couldn't continue surviving together in the same world – even in the same country – until one of you dies of old age. I need to think about this, but now is not the time. Now we need to get back to Hogwarts." Russ looked around at the others. "Regarding Draco, if no one objects, I'll work by my own timetable. No reason to be asking permission at every step along the way. I'll contact Malfoy, explain the situation, and arrange for him to search Regulus's old dormitory. Everything that he finds, I'll report to the group. Any additions or subtractions?"

All were agreed, and so Russ set his plan into motion.

Step one was to get Moody's permission to visit the Malfoys at Blenheim. This was relatively easy, as was enlisting Draco's aid. The two sat at a table in the drawing room.

"The last time I was here," Snape began, "you asked if there was anything you could do. There is. It's a small part of a plan to defeat the Dark Lord. Once you participate in it, all hope of reconciliation with the Dark Lord will be over. Consider well before you agree."

"I'm in," said Draco. "What have I got to lose? He already tried to kill me."

"You'll need help. The logical people are Crabbe and Goyle. Helping you will be one decision for Crabbe, whose father's in Azkaban, and quite another for Goyle, whose father is still with the Dark Lord."

"I think they'll agree to do what I tell them."

Snape rose. "I'm sorry I wasted your time, Draco. We'll find some other way of dealing with the situation. Give my regards to your mother."

"Wait!" cried the disbelieving Draco. "What did I say? What did I do wrong?"

"Draco, if I still wanted to serve a Dark Lord, I wouldn't be trying to hook my wagon to a junior grade one. I'd go for the real thing. You don't tell Crabbe and Goyle what to do. You give them the facts of the situation and let them choose. And if they say no, you let them go."

"And if I say no?"

"I let you go back to whatever it is you do to amuse yourself in this place, and I leave you alone."

"Let me think about it."

A real decision from a Draco with free will took two more days, and Snape was certain he talked it over with Narcissa. In the end it was the same decision, but Snape felt better for having waited.

"You'll be searching the fourth-year boys dormitory for something that may have been left there seventeen years ago by a seventh-year student whose initials were R.A.B. We don't know what it is, or how many there are, or even if it's there. You're looking for something that looks like it's been hidden for a long time.

"Moody will let you into the Shrieking Shack. There's a tunnel there that goes into Hogwarts. A fifth-year Ravenclaw student will meet you there and help you get in touch with Crabbe, and then with Goyle. The Ravenclaw boy will know the whole plan. You follow his instructions as if they were coming from me."

Malfoy agreed, and it was arranged that he would go to Hogwarts on Friday.

While he waited for Draco's arrival at Hogwarts, Snape had time to review with Lupin the contents of the now complete prophecy, which he did while working on the Wolfsbane potion. He and Neville were still trying different combinations of herbs for a better balance. Alone together, with Lupin's office door locked, Snape was relaxing from the strain of Polyjuice as himself.

"'Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…' I tell you, Remus, this prophecy thing is rubbish. The sentence is meaningless. Both are surviving quite happily."

"Maybe it only refers to the moment when they meet. At that moment, it's a battle to the death."

"But they already met, remember? They met two and a half years ago and actually crossed wands. I don't recall anyone dying in that particular fight. The 'one or the other' thing is balderdash."

"I hadn't thought about it in quite that way."

"Maybe you should."

Remus looked irritated. "Harry's right about you, you know. As Russ you're rather pleasant. As Snape you're downright rude. I'm only trying to help you sort out the truth."

"Maybe it isn't referring to a fight," Neville suggested quietly. "Something happened in the Ministry at the end of the battle in the Department of Mysteries. Voldemort somehow got inside Harry, but neither one of them could stand being together like that. Voldemort was driven out. Lots of people saw it. Hermione says Harry was sure the contact was going to kill him."

Snape and Lupin both stared at Neville. "Why would the Dark Lord want to possess Harry Potter?" Snape asked.

"He didn't want Dumbledore to kill him. He thought if he was inside Harry, Dumbledore couldn't hurt him. That's what Hermione says."

That gave Snape one more thing to think about.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Friday, December 19, 1997_

Draco arrived on Friday around five-thirty in the morning. It was dark and snowing lightly. Russ was waiting at the inner end of the tunnel, watching for the tiny blue Lumos light that would tell him Draco had not backed out. When they were face to face, there was a brief moment of mutual inspection, then Russ held out his hand.

"I'm Russell Moody," he said.

"Moody? Are you related to old Moody who just brought me into the tunnel?"

"My grandfather's brother."

"So that's why you're in on this. I was wondering. Are you American?"

"Yeah. I'm only here temporarily. Then I'm going back home. Hogwarts doesn't help you go to Stanford."

"Is that an American wizards' school?"

"Sort of."

They walked up the hill into the sleeping castle, the falling snow covering their footprints behind them. The Baron was on duty in the entrance hall, to keep Peeves from spoiling things, and Russ led Draco to one of the unused classrooms in the corridor opposite the Great Hall where a fairly respectable breakfast was waiting. Draco missed Hogwarts food, though he would never have admitted it, and dug in gratefully while Russ explained the plan.

"I'll start with Vincent Crabbe. Get him to come in here and talk to you. It'll be easier if he agrees to help, but don't tell him what he has to do until he's agreed. Then we'll try Gregory Goyle. If we have both, we send them into Slytherin during breakfast to get hairs from one of the pillows in the fourth year boys dormitory."

Russ pulled out a flask of thick gray liquid. "This is Polyjuice potion. I understand it tastes terrible, but you have to drink it. It's special. They got it to last three hours. We'll put the hairs in here, and you become that fourth year student. While Goyle keeps the real student busy, you and Crabbe search the dormitory."

"Why Crabbe? Why not Goyle with me in the dormitory."

"My orders are Crabbe. I understand it's because Goyle's father isn't protected, so they want Goyle away from the important part of the operation."

Draco nodded. It was beginning to sound exciting, like a spy adventure, and he puffed up with some importance. "Why couldn't you do this since you're here?"

"Me? How could I find my way around Slytherin house? I've never been there. And I certainly couldn't get anyone from there to help me. I'm doing this much because my great-uncle says I have to help Mr. Snape."

Draco nodded again. By this time it was nearly seven, and the very first early birds were rising this vacation morning and wending their way to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"Crabbe and Goyle," asked Russ, "will they be among the first or the last? Do they sleep late?"

"If they could eat while they slept, they'd sleep 'til noon. But food's more important than sleep, so they're usually early."

Russ went out to wait, and soon Crabbe appeared, food being the one thing that could separate him from Goyle. Russ walked right up to him. "Someone wants to see you," he announced.

"Get out of my way, Ravenclaw," snarled Crabbe. "Who'd send you to talk to me?"

"I'm serious. Someone who knows your father is here, and they sent me to get you. He's waiting in one of the classrooms right here."

"My dad? Something about my dad? Where?" Crabbe was suddenly so eager to follow that Russ felt guilty about his little deception, but he felt a bit better at the surprised, happy look on Crabbe's face when he saw Draco. Draco explained the job, with help from Russ on the details.

"If we're successful, it could help get your father out of Azkaban. If we're not successful, no harm's done because no one but us will ever know this happened."

Crabbe agreed, then went out looking for Goyle, who also joined the plot. Russ and Draco then had compassion on the two and sent them to breakfast so they could be ready when the rest of Slytherin house came out to eat.

Draco waited in the classroom, and Russ in the corridor, as Crabbe and Goyle went back into Slytherin house a half hour later. By this time most of the students were in the Great Hall eating breakfast, including all the fourth year boys. Still, it was possible to imagine any number of things that might go wrong, and Russ wasn't going to relax until the job was over. It took only a few minutes, however, and Crabbe and Goyle were back, bringing robes as well as the hair.

"Whose is it?" Russ asked, but the two shrugged. They didn't know which boy slept in which bed.

"You mean I don't know who I'm going to turn into!" Draco protested. What if it's some prat, or someone who's soft in the head?"

"Or ugly?" said Crabbe, and Russ glanced at him in surprise that Crabbe might actually be making a joke at Draco's expense.

"Whoever it is," he assured Draco, "you won't be soft in the head. It'll still be your brain in there, and it'll only last three hours."

"All right," said Draco, and lifted the goblet, filled now with Polyjuice and bits of hair, to his lips. He made a gruesome face. "This is, without a doubt, the foulest stuff I've ever tasted," he said, choking slightly, but still he finished it.

Almost immediately he began to change, from tall and slender to average height and strongly built. His blond hair darkened and his eyes turned brown. "A mirror – I've got to look in a mirror," Draco insisted, and was shocked at what he saw. "Faustino Allerton! I'm Faustino Allerton?"

"Is that good or bad?" asked Russ.

Draco thought for a moment. "Well, neither actually. He's all right. It could've been worse. He almost made the Quidditch team."

"Did make it this year," said Goyle. "He's a Chaser."

Goyle and Russ went to the Great Hall, where Goyle sat himself across from Allerton, ready to start a conversation if it looked like Allerton was going back to the dormitories. "What do I say," he whispered to Russ just before they'd walked in.

"Talk about the next Quidditch game," Russ suggested.

When Goyle was in place, Russ paused by the Gryffindor table on the far side of the room where Luna was eating breakfast with Hermione and Neville. "The dark-haired one sitting across from Goyle. Name's Allerton, Chaser on the Quidditch team. If Goyle has trouble holding him here, step in," he said, and the three nodded.

Back in the entrance hall, Russ gave Draco a signal, and he and Crabbe made their way into the dungeons to Slytherin house. There was nothing now for Russ to do but wait.

Time dragged. Russ kept telling himself it was a good sign that they were there for so long – it meant they hadn't been stopped or challenged. Meanwhile things were going well in the Great Hall, for Allerton and his friends were discussing the Slytherin – Ravenclaw Quidditch game coming up at the end of January, and Goyle didn't have to do or say anything.

An hour passed… an hour and fifteen minutes… An hour and thirty-eight minutes after they started, Draco and Crabbe returned and hurried down the corridor to their empty classroom. Russ stepped into the Great Hall and signaled Goyle. Together they joined the other two.

"I never knew there could be so many places to hide things in this old castle!" crowed Draco. "For hundreds of years every student in Hogwarts has been prying stones out of the walls or loosening floor boards. It's a wonder the place is still standing! Some of them were easy, but some were pretty well hidden. I hope we got them all."

"What did you find?"

"Not much, actually. Lots of little stuff. We didn't touch what belonged to the current group, but we took the rest." He and Goyle emptied their pockets and deposited an assortment of coins and trinkets, some very old, on the table. Russ had thought to provide more food after the excitement of the adventure, and the other three were eating heartily again as he looked through the booty.

"No papers?" Russ asked, disappointment clear in his voice. "No notebooks or letters?"

"Nope. Nothing like that. Oh, one other thing. I didn't put it with the rest because I thought it might break. I mean, it's already broken, but I was afraid it would break more." Draco reached into his breast pocket and handed Russ a little glass vial. "It doesn't say R.A.B., just R. B. scratched onto the bottom, but it's something."

It was something indeed. A small glass vial with a cork stopper, dusty with age. It had once contained something, but there was a long crack down one side and whatever had been in it had long since leaked out, leaving only gray streaks on the sides of the glass. On the bottom, as Draco had said, were the initials R. B. It was a vial meant to store pensieve memories.

Russ sent Crabbe and Goyle to the Great Hall with a warning that in the future they must act as if they didn't know each him, then got Draco out into the still-falling snow so that they could return to the Whomping Willow before Draco changed back from Allerton to himself. Draco had clearly enjoyed himself immensely.

"Will I see you again?"

"Probably not. I don't even know how much longer I'll be in Britain."

"How'd you get the Willow to stay still?"

"Don't know. My great-uncle did it."

"How'd you get me through the spells around the shack?"

"Don't know. My…"

"Great-uncle did it. Well, thanks for your help. It was fun. Am I going to learn what you found out from all that stuff?"

"That depends on Uncle Alastor and Mr. Snape. You can ask him when you get back to the Shack. They'll probably tell you something."

Draco departed, and Russ returned to the castle. He stood just outside the Great Hall, where Luna could see him but Crabbe and Goyle couldn't. Soon he was joined by Luna, Hermione, and Neville, and together they went to the Dark Arts office. Shortly after that, Lupin arrived, too.

"Keep it away from the windows," Russ warned Lupin, who was examining the dried contents of the now clean vial. "Sunlight won't make our job easier. Miss Granger, you'll find my old copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_ in the cupboard. Would you kindly turn to the section on rehydrating evaporated potions ingredients? I think I made some notes on that page." He turned to face a distressed Hermione. "What's wrong, Miss Granger?"

"You're talking like a teacher. It just feels strange."

"I fear it is a habit I have when there is a task to perform. You may just have to get used to it. "

Hermione leafed through the book while Luna searched for glassware, finally coming across a flask with a bulbous base and a long narrow neck. When Russ pronounced it the perfect thing, she set to cleaning it thoroughly. Neville was preparing a petri dish and looking for narrow metal instruments that could be used to scrape the sides of the vial.

"Is this what you wanted?" asked Hermione, showing Russ a scribbled recipe with the notation 'To Revive Desiccated Wasp Eyes.'

"The very one. Thank you. Now, I have something else. I want you and Mr. Longbottom to break into my office."

"What?"

"My office. The Potions office. Slughorn doesn't use it, and it still has my locks. These are the spells to open it." Quickly showing Hermione the complex series of incantations, Russ then turned to Neville. "I need a small vial of mandrake oil, the type you would use for softening lizard's beak, not the kind used in petrification cases. The comfrey root will be too old. Get some from Professor Sprout. Dried yarrow and hyssop, and some cascarilla bark."

The two left, and Russ next sent Luna up to the Ravenclaw dormitories to get his pensieve from his own little bedroom. She was back with it before Hermione and Neville returned with the potions ingredients. When everyone had reassembled in the Dark Arts office, Russ made sure the doors and windows were locked. "This will be very delicate. We don't want any drafts."

While Neville and Hermione worked on the revival potion, Luna and Lupin held the edges of a drop cloth meant to catch any stray memory fragments as Russ began carefully to scrape the gray matter from the sides of the old pensieve vial into the petri dish. All of them wore lab masks to guard against accidentally breathing on the soft, light flakes that they were gathering.

"That's it," said Russ finally, and carefully poured the flakes into the long-necked flask. Neville and Hermione had finished the potion and measured a half-gill into a test tube. "Keep your fingers crossed," said Russ. "We don't know if there's any memory left, but in any case we only have one shot at this. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work."

Slowly he added the potion to the memory flakes in the flask. As the liquid touched them, the flakes began to transform into a thin, silver cloud. It was weak and wispy – clearly much of the memory was gone – but it was something.

All five gathered around a table in the office as Russ gently tipped the flask and slid the newly revived memory into the pensieve.

It was like watching an old movie in poor condition. The color of the memory had faded to nearly black and white, and the image was fuzzy at times and fragmented at others. There were spots where no memory was left at all, and the images jumped from one to the other like badly edited film. Still, there was a memory, and it told a story.

_Regulus looked around from his bed at his sleeping dormitory mates, then rose, dressed in his robes, and opened the chest at the foot of his bed. Inside was a narrow package wrapped in brown paper, about two feet long, and a smaller one nearly round in shape. Regulus took them from the chest, closed the lid, and carried the packages out of the dormitory and through the Slytherin common room into the dungeon corridors._

_Quickly and quietly, Regulus climbed the stairs to the third floor and the trophy room. Making his way to the rear of the room, he loosened the latches on the cover of one case and slid the cover to the floor. Then he unwrapped the larger package._

_Inside was the base of a trophy. It was fashioned of small squares that might have been blue, with little decorations resembling sheaves of wheat. The top part of the trophy was empty. Opening the second package, Regulus took out a small, two-handed cup. This he affixed to the top of the trophy base to make it complete. He then rearranged the other trophies in the case to make room for this new one, adjusting the positioning several times so that it looked natural, and then replaced the case's cover._

_There was nothing to show that the case had ever been touched. Taking the brown paper with him, and making sure no trace of his presence remained, Regulus left the trophy room and returned to the Slytherin dormitories, where he got back into bed and went to sleep._

"That's the trophy I found," Neville whispered. "It must be the right one."

"It is," said Hermione, her eyes glittering in triumph. "We did it."

Lupin was watching Russ. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"It doesn't make sense," Russ answered. "Why would he take this memory out of his head and leave it here in a vial? Unless…"

They waited while he formulated the thought. "Unless he was trying to hide the memory from someone – from a legilimens. You see," Russ explained, realizing they didn't understand, "the pensieve memory is the conscious, surface thought. That's generally what a legilimens can see. The deeper, subconscious image is impossible to get for the common legilimens, and easier to hide from even the most accomplished legilimens, though if he's looking for that particular memory, he might know you're hiding it. The only reason I can think of why Regulus would remove this memory is because he didn't want the Dark Lord to know where he'd put the cup."

"Are you telling me," said Lupin, "that Voldemort doesn't know the location of this Horcrux either?"

"It's possible. But this was when Regulus was still in school. I would have thought he was still passionately loyal to the Dark Lord at this time. Why would he want to hide the location of the Horcrux? And the trophy base – it's the arms of Peverell, one of the Dark Lord's ancestors. I would assume the Dark Lord chose the form of the trophy, and must therefore know it's in the trophy room."

"Who else would he be hiding the memory from?"

"Dumbledore?" Russ's tone showed that he doubted it.

"Maybe he was going to blackmail Voldemort," said Luna softly.

"Blackmail the Dark Lord? You don't blackmail the Dark Lord. You'd have to be crazy."

"No, look," Luna insisted, "what if he hid the cup, showed Voldemort where it was, then changed the location and removed the memory? Voldemort would think it's one place in Hogwarts, but it's really someplace else. So if Regulus gets into trouble, he can use it to bargain with."

"Look, Luna," said Hermione patiently, "if it's in the form of a trophy, it's going to be in the trophy room."

"Maybe Regulus designed the trophy. He used something of Voldemort's – the coat of arms – so it could be found quickly if necessary, but Voldemort doesn't know what it is."

Lupin shook his head, laughing. "So you think Voldemort thinks it's in Hogwarts, but he thinks it's somewhere besides the trophy room."

"Sure, why not?' Luna smiled with satisfaction at the idea.

"Luna may be right," Russ said suddenly.

"Are you serious?" Lupin asked. "How?"

"It's the timing. Look how old he was. This has to be sixth or seventh year. If it's sixth or the beginning of seventh, it makes no sense. But what if it's near the end of his seventh year? That's less than a year before he died. He may have started to change by then. For about a year the fighting had gotten worse, and lots of people were dying – the McKinnons, Fenwick, the Boneses, Dearborn, the Prewetts. That's also the time when we were checking on who was pregnant and when the babies were due. That's when Draco was born – June. Regulus was Narcissa's cousin. What if he was afraid her baby was the one the Dark Lord was looking for? The whole fight was looking less and less like a defensive war against muggles and more and more like an offensive war against wizards."

"So you think he made this memory vial to withhold information from Voldemort?"

"I think it's very possible."

"Does Voldemort know? That he doesn't know, I mean."

"Remus, he has to. He interrogated Regulus before he killed him. If he knew about the locket, he was sure to ask about the cup. I don't think Regulus gave him an answer. I'm not sure Regulus could give him an answer. I've never been questioned about a memory I took out of my brain. But Regulus's execution was particularly brutal. I think now it was because the Dark Lord couldn't get the information he wanted, so he took vengeance on Regulus when he killed him."

"How do you know about… his death?" Neville asked.

"I had to watch it. We all did, as a warning against betraying the Dark Lord. I was already passing information to Dumbledore at the time, so the warning had added significance for me."

"So what do we do now?" asked Hermione.

"The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced the Dark Lord didn't know what Regulus had done with the locket. Orion clearly feared he'd find out – which is why he fortified the house so strongly – but he didn't. If the Dark Lord thought any other member of the Black family had helped Regulus, he'd have punished them all, but he didn't. So Regulus hid that information, too…"

"In other pensieve vials," Hermione finished for him. "Russ, would those vials be at… you know… the Black home?"

"Probably. I don't know where else he would have hidden them."

"Then we can go there and look for them."

"Well, you and I could, Miss Granger. And Remus could. But not Miss Lovegood or Mr. Longbottom. They don't know the secret. And the only one who could tell them…" Russ suddenly realized that he didn't know if the mantle of secret-keeper had been passed to Emmeline Vance or not. In any case, the students were not to know.

"Was Dumbledore." Hermione finished his sentence.

"Exactly. There are two we could ask who know more about the contents of that house than any other living beings, but we couldn't do it today."

"Who are they?" asked Neville.

"One is the house-elf, Kreacher, but Mr. Potter would have to ask him. The other is in Katmandu – Mrs. Weasley."

"But we could still look," stated Hermione emphatically, and Russ realized that she was fired with the idea of finding another piece to the puzzle.

"Let me contact Moody and see what he thinks. Personally, I don't see why not." _And if Moody is wise, he'll inform the Order._

Russ contacted Moody, using a larger, more experienced school owl for the message because he was worried about little Athena flying in the snow. Moody agreed and contacted McGonagall, arranging for Russ, Hermione, and Professor Lupin to leave Hogwarts the next day in order to spend some time searching Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.

As an afterthought, Moody also sent a owl to Harry Potter, telling him what they were planning. After all, it was his house.

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_Saturday, December 20, 1997_

Professor Lupin, Hermione, and Russ left early the next morning, walking down the hill and through the Hogsmeade gate where Moody waited for them, and then apparating to London. Russ had take a short term pill that morning so that he could spend some time with his system not overtaxed by the Polyjuice.

The dark, depressing house was probably quiet before they entered, but not afterwards. "Is there no shame! No honor! Defiling my house with this filth! Mudbloods! Half-breeds! Blood traitors!" The four hurried quickly past the portrait of Mrs. Black and up the stairs to the bedrooms. Russ had never been in this part of the house before, and looked around curiously.

"Now," said Moody, "if I were a memory vial, where would I hide. Bedrooms, maybe?"

They started in the attic, intending to work their way down. After about fifteen minutes, Russ left the others and went down to one of the bedrooms to sit on an ancient canopied bed. A sound made him look up. Hermione stood in the doorway.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'll be okay. It's the morphing. The pill's wearing off."

"Does it hurt? I mean, the only time I ever took Polyjuice, I made that mistake and turned into a cat. That wasn't pleasant at all. I couldn't imagine doing it several times a day."

"It's not comfortable, of course, but it's not too bad. If you don't mind, though…"

"Sorry," Hermione said, and left the room, closing the door behind her. A few minutes later Snape joined her in the hallway. "How's your arm?" she asked, looking at the sling.

"I don't know. I haven't checked it."

"Let me." Carefully unwrapping the bandages and lifting the dressing, Hermione examined the scabs. "It looks a little better. Has Neville been working on it?"

"No, though it might be good if he did. I don't wear this form when he's around, though, so there isn't much chance."

As she rebound the arm, Hermione said, "Professor, may I ask you a question?"

Snape thought for a few seconds. "Certainly, though I shall reserve my right not to answer it."

"When you're Russell, you're much… well, much nicer, more friendly and open, and when you're you, you're… not. I was just wondering why that was, when you're the same person." She was not looking at him as she said this.

"I suppose that depends on the circumstances."

"You remember the time Malfoy hit me with a spell that made my teeth grow? Of course you do – you showed it to me at my first occlumency lesson. You said… something very cruel."

"I shall be honest with you, Miss Granger. I was looking out for my own interests. At that moment it was of no concern to me whatsoever how you felt. No, that's not exactly true. At that moment it was in my interests that you feel miserable and unhappy. If the circumstances repeated themselves today, I should do the same thing."

She looked at him now, her eyes wide with hurt and shock. "Why?"

"We knew, had known for months, that the Dark Lord was getting stronger. I knew, Karkaroff knew, every Death Eater knew – Dumbledore knew because I told him. We knew that when he returned, he'd call, and there were only two responses to that call – run and be killed like Karkaroff, or go and be… interrogated. When he looked into my mind, I wanted to be able to show him what he wanted to see. The look of shock on a mudblood's face was one of those things. There were many others, but that was one."

"Was it very unpleasant, that 'interrogation?'"

"I survived. That was really all that was important. Shall we rejoin the others?"

They went back to the attic and continued searching, but half an hour later Snape noticed that Hermione was talking to Moody, and that Moody glanced at him. Then Moody and Hermione left and were gone for quite a while. When they returned, Hermione seemed sad, and wouldn't look at him.

Snape edged closer to Moody and hissed, "If you've been telling her what I think you've been telling her, you meddling old…"

"Somebody's got to look out for your welfare, boyo, especially seeing as you won't."

"And just exactly why is it in my welfare that an eighteen-year-old student know the less pleasant incidents in my life?"

Moody seized Snape's right elbow and steered him out of the attic and onto the stair landing. "It so happens that for all your insistence that you're just looking out for yourself, you have this annoying habit of calmly walking into some of the most dangerous and painful situations I've ever seen a sane human being face with his eyes open. One of these days you're going to misjudge your chances of beating the odds, and wouldn't it be nice if there was someone alive who'd mourn you, put flowers on your grave? I didn't do it for you, I did it for me, 'cause I can't stand not seeing the flowers!"

"Don't forget, I also have wonderful survival instincts. What did you say, anyway?"

"I told her what happened when you went back, after Podmore's arrest."

"You don't know what happened then!"

"Oh, I do. You showed me yourself, right down there in the parlor of this house, remember? You didn't mean to, but you did."

"Don't tell her anything more."

"I don't think I have to. She says Hagrid's been talking, too. You'd better watch out, boyo, or you'll have every little girl in Hogwarts idolizing the ground you walk on."

"You will regret this. I am going to make you regret this."

"You do that, boyo. I look forward to it. Now let's go back and look for memory vials."

By the afternoon they'd worked their way down to the next floor where the bedrooms were. Things were going very slowly, and all four were getting frustrated and touchy, when Harry walked into the house and saw Snape and Hermione on the second floor landing.

"I see you didn't waste any time trying to get your paws on my things."

"Amazing, Potter. Every time I see you, your judgment's gotten worse. Could there be an inverse relationship between fame and common sense?"

"Stop it, both of you. You're supposed to be on the same side."

"The same side as Ron? I notice you didn't waste any time after he left the country." Harry had a nasty smirk on his face.

"Potter! That comment was…"

"Harry James Potter, you are a toad!"

Moody and Lupin came rushing down the hall at the sound of raised voices. "Harry!" Lupin cried. "It's good you're here. You can help us look."

"Look for what?" For some reason it seemed to Snape that Harry was disappointed to see them there, as if he wanted an excuse to be angry with Snape and Hermione.

"Severus," Lupin nodded toward Snape, " has discovered that Regulus Black may have left pensieve memories about the Horcruxes and his reasons for turning against Voldemort. We found one at Hogwarts, and now we hope to find more here."

"What good would that do?" Harry's disdain was evident.

"If we could show why Regulus turned, why such a staunch supporter of Voldemort left him, we may persuade others to do the same. Harry, we talked about this in the Shack. You agreed."

"I agreed to look for papers, possessions of Regulus's in Slytherin house. I didn't agree to tear my own house apart looking for a voice from the grave. Pensieve memories. Do you know how silly that sounds?"

"It didn't sound silly when we watched the one we found in Slytherin," said Hermione, her hands on her hips. "You'd do better to help us. This could be important."

"Potter doesn't want it to be important," Snape said suddenly. "It detracts from his own importance. Imagine the Chosen One being upstaged by a dead man. Conversing with the deceased. Better than a séance."

"You can't talk to the dead!" Harry yelled. "No conversations with the deceased! You'd have more luck talking to them!" and he gestured wildly at the mummified heads of long-dead house-elves that lined the staircase. "What you're doing is useless!"

But Snape wasn't listening anymore. Instead he was staring in wonder where Harry pointed. Advancing slowly, he studied one of the elf heads, then held its jaw steady with his weak hand and inserted the fingers of his right hand into its mouth, drawing out a small vial, stoppered with cork and containing a silver-gray cloud that floated and swirled inside it.

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	12. Chapter 12 – Pensieves and Memories

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Pensieves and Memories**

There were five little vials inside five house-elf heads, all of them corked and in good condition, all with the initials R. B. scratched on the bottom. The group moved into the kitchen now, and Moody set a pensieve on the table. He'd also brought sandwiches for lunch, which no one had thought about until now, and the searchers ate hungrily while Lupin and Hermione fixed tea and Snape showed Moody and Harry the restored pensieve memory they'd found at Hogwarts.

"The cup is in Hogwarts? The cup was in Hogwarts all along? Then we didn't have to…" Harry suddenly looked terribly tired and depressed. "We went after a fake, when a real one was right there, unprotected."

"That's all right, lad. It wasn't anyone's fault. How were you to know?" Moody patted Harry's hand, and Lupin put an arm around Harry's shoulders in sympathy. Hermione crossed the room to hug him.

"Let's look at the others, now," said Moody. "Maybe they'll help us, too." He examined the vials, but there was no way to tell what order the memories were in, so he selected one at random and poured it into the pensieve.

_Regulus stood concealed by the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy on the seventh floor of Hogwarts castle, holding a covered goblet. It was clearly late in the evening, judging by the torchlight in the corridor. After listening for a moment, Regulus removed the cover from the goblet and drank about half its contents. Within seconds he'd transformed into another student._

_A group of senior Gryffindor students clattered noisily up the stairs and cheerfully cried, 'Non timeo Salazar' to the Fat Lady. After they entered, Regulus approached the portrait and repeated the password, climbing through the round door into the Gryffindor common room. No one seemed to notice him in the hubbub of saying 'Good night,' and he slipped quietly into a chair by a small table in the corner._

'_Hey, Dawlish,' said a prefect. 'Third years were supposed to be in bed an hour ago.'_

'_May I stay up a bit? I have a few paragraphs left on my History of Magic Essay for tomorrow.'_

'_All right, but get to bed as soon as you're done.'_

_Shortly after, the common room was empty except for Regulus. He rose and went to a small display case dedicated to the life and achievements of Godric Gryffindor. Opening it quickly and quietly, he extracted from a clutter of memorabilia a small, double-handled cup, which he hid in his robes. He then closed the case, and silently left the common room through the portrait door._

"That was our common room," Hermione gasped, outraged that a Slytherin would be using Gryffindor territory to aid Voldemort. "How dare he put that Horcrux thing in our common room!"

"More to the point," said Moody, "how did he get it into Gryffindor in the first place?"

"Probably the same way he got it out," observed Lupin.

Moody selected another vial and they settled to watch a new memory.

_A slightly older Regulus was standing in the drawing room of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place arguing with an older man who must have been his father._

'_You can yell at me all you like because there's nothing you can do to stop me. I've already done it, and it's already here. And if he finds out it's here, you're not going to escape either, not you or Mother or anyone in the family. So I suggest you do what you can to keep it secret.'_

'_And I thought there was only one blood traitor in the family. Why, Reggie? Why turn against your own people like this?'_

'_My own people? That's what I always thought, too, but he lied to us. We aren't being attacked by muggles, Father! We're being attacked by him using Imperius curses! And it's all for himself, for his own power. Father, he murders people…'_

'_I'm not listening to this, Reggie.'_

'_You have to, Father, please. He's making these things that'll extend his life, and he kills… Father, they captured one of Dumbledore's people last year, and he murdered her for no reason except to make one of these things. He's multiplying vile things – dementors and inferi and ghouls! He's looking for a baby now. A baby! There's no honor in this, no decency, no defense of purity or tradition. It's all about power! And it's all about himself.'_

'_If the Dark Lord is what you say, why aren't others leaving him? Why are you alone? It's because you're wrong! You aren't my son. I never raised you!'_

'_But I'm not alone. I've talked to Avery. And Nott. They're willing to listen. There's a couple of others I'm going to talk to, Rookwood and Yaxley. And I'll go. I'll leave your house, but you have to protect the place, Father. You have to keep it safe from him.'_

No one spoke, except that Moody and Snape took note of the names mentioned, all of whom but Yaxley were currently in Azkaban. Moody poured another vial into the pensieve.

_Regulus apparated onto open moor country, and came face to face with a twenty-one-year-old Sirius. 'Hello, brother. Here I am. Have you missed me?'_

_Sirius glowered. 'I came. What did you want to tell me?'_

'_I've been to see Father. He's not happy with me. It seems I'm following in footsteps he disapproves of.'_

'_I've been telling you that for years. What made Father see the light?'_

'_I'm not sure you grasp the situation.'_

'_Father's finally figured out that you followed slimy little half-breed greaseballs into a dead-end, and now you want my help getting out.'_

'_Someday it's going to occur to you that you might be wrong about something. You make these snap decisions about things, and then you refuse to change. Well, both you and Father are wrong. I don't follow anyone. I make my own decisions.'_

'_I'm glad to hear that, because I haven't seen a lot of independent thought from you lately.'_

'_There's a lot you've misjudged in this world, Sirius. You've misjudged me and my friends, and a lot of that's my fault, but you've also misjudged your friends. You're pals with people you shouldn't be trusting, and they're going to betray you…'_

'_You leave my friends out of this. You're trying to recruit me by turning me against my mates, but it won't work, Reggie. I'm wise to you. I'm not listening to this. I'm sorry I came.'_

'_Suit yourself.'_

There was an awkward silence at the end of that memory, and no one looked at Snape, who continued staring at the pensieve with his brow creased in thought. The fourth pensieve image was very short.

_Regulus walked into the drawing room of his family home. He was carrying a small item wrapped in familiar brown paper. Walking over to one of the glass cabinets, he opened it, unwrapped the brown paper, and placed a heavy locket engraved with a serpentine S into the cabinet. Closing the glass door again, he turned and left the room._

"That's our locket, too," said Moody. "Looks like we hit the jackpot. Let's look at the last one."

_A much younger Regulus, maybe fifteen years old, sat across a table in the Hog's Head from a dark-haired young woman with heavily lidded eyes. She was in the middle of saying something. '…good to know I can count on you when something important has to be done. Now remember, someplace where no one will think to look for it.'_

'_Don't worry, Cousin Bella, I can think of a lot of places. Can I ask anyone to help me? To be a lookout or something?'_

'_That's probably not wise. We don't want anyone else knowing.'_

'_I could ask Severus. You trust him.'_

'_Oh no, Reggie. You leave my puppy dog out of this. He's not like us. He's just a half-breed, and he's not with us for the cause, just for protection. He's like a little bird. Run at him too fast and you'll frighten him, and he'll fly away. Move slowly, and you can throw a cloth over him and catch him.'_

'_But he's good at things like this.'_

'_He's good at things you couldn't dream of doing. That's why we have to be careful. There are plans for him. You just keep your brother after him, and when he leaves Hogwarts we'll pick him like a ripe apple. But we can't move too soon. There's someone else, though.'_

'_Who?'_

'_You'd never guess. A Gryffindor. A little fellow – littler on some occasions than on others – but one with big ambitions and even larger greed. Just mention my name, and he'll do what you ask. Just don't tell him all the details. He's no more trustworthy on our side then on theirs. But he'd be a wonderful lookout. He has this talent for hiding in corners where no one sees him… His name's Peter…'_

Moody looked over at Snape. "Puppy dog?"

"You don't know the worst of it. Ever since she escaped from Azkaban, she calls me that to my face. And in public, too."

"When do you figure that last one happened?"

"From Regulus's age – end of fourth year or sometime in fifth. So Remus and I would have been in sixth or seventh."

"Did you know? That you'd been targeted, I mean?"

"I found out later. Someone let it slip that the muggle attack on my last living relative had been… arranged. By then it was too late."

"She said you wanted protection. Who from?"

"I can answer that," said Harry. "From my father and Sirius."

"It does appear, however," added Snape, "that Sirius had more cause than I realized at the time. And to think, I used to ask Regulus what his brother had against me, and he always professed utter ignorance."

Lupin was looking at the vials. "I'd say the chronological order would be talking to Bella – taking the cup from Gryffindor – putting the cup in the trophy room – hiding the locket here in the drawing room – arguing with his father – arguing with Sirius. Pity Sirius didn't understand what he was talking about. I'm surprised Regulus didn't explain more."

"I'm not," said Snape, ignoring Harry's glare. "You notice we didn't find a memory of stealing the locket. My guess is that Regulus knew he couldn't hide that from the Dark Lord. Which means he knew he was going to die. Telling Sirius would only result in Sirius charging into headquarters like an enraged bull and getting himself killed, too. I think Regulus was trying to ensure that wouldn't happen."

"Sirius did tend to do things like that," said Moody.

"I guess he did," said Harry quietly, and got up and walked out of the kitchen.

Snape glance quizzically at Moody, who shook his head as Lupin and Hermione went after Harry. "He's got to face it sometime. May as well be now," said Moody.

There was still a lot to talk about and a lot of planning to do, none of which could in all conscience be done until Harry was ready to join the group. It was decided they would spend at least one night at Grimmauld Place, which meant getting dinner.

"You could cook," Hermione suggested to Snape, an idea to which Moody heartily concurred.

"Severus can cook?" Lupin laughed, and Harry, finally back in the kitchen, looked incredulous.

"All it is, is edible potion-making," Snape explained. "There is nothing unusual about the idea at all. How about chicken curry?"

Russ and Hermione were the least conspicuous of the group, so they went shopping. It took a while, since Russ was particular about what he bought, and Hermione asked a lot of questions concerning the food and the spices, but at last they returned with quite a load of groceries for one meal. That was when they hit another snag.

"What do you mean there's no stove? There has to be a stove," Russ insisted.

"Well, there's a sort of a stove, but it's meant for house-elf use, and it's magic."

Russ, remembering Brendon and McDonald's, stood his ground. "I am not," he stated flatly, "cooking with magic. If you can't get me a gas stove, get me a coal grate, but I'm not cooking with magic."

"Isn't it illegal to use coal in London?" asked Hermione. "I'm pretty good with conjuring fire. Would that help?"

In the end it did help, and the evening meal was chicken curry and rice. There was an assortment of vegetables and condiments to go with the curry ("How much of my money are you spending, anyway," Moody demanded.), and with a little green tea ice cream for dessert it went very well.

Since Snape, who had returned to his own form while cooking, had made the meal, and Hermione had helped with the shopping, it was agree the others would do the washing up. Lupin and Moody began to debate the relative merits of magic versus real washing, while Snape retreated to the drawing room to relax with a glass of wine.

He was joined after a few minutes by Harry. "Can I talk to you about my parents?" Harry asked.

"Wouldn't it be better to talk to Lupin? He was close to your father. I wasn't."

"You were close to my mother. You knew things about my father, probably, that Professor Lupin doesn't. You don't worry about making me feel good. Do you need other reasons?"

"I wouldn't know where to begin."

"When did you first meet them?"

"Meet? We were never formally introduced. I first saw your father on the Express going to Hogwarts. I didn't notice your mother on the train."

"What happened?"

"Nothing." Harry waited, and after a moment Snape continued. "My mother brought me down from Lancashire. We were poor, and I suppose I looked it. I didn't know anybody, and when I got on the train, every compartment already had someone in it. So I went to the rear of the train, to the corridor outside the baggage car, and sat there. Part way through the trip, two boys came by – James and Sirius. One said it was the end of the train and they could go back, and the other said it looked like it was the working class side of town anyway, and then they left."

"That was it?"

"That was it."

"But what happened after that?"

"Nothing. During first year, Slytherin and Gryffindor had Potions together, and for a short time, flying lessons. I didn't pay any attention to the Gryffindor students because I was having enough trouble with the Slytherin ones. I was good at Potions, but kept quiet, and miserable at flying, where I got laughed at a lot. I don't recall that either of your parents or Sirius were any different from the rest. I certainly didn't notice them."

Harry settled into a chair. "Why'd the Slytherins bother you?"

"Children pick on those who are different. I suppose I was different."

"Different!" Lupin entered from the kitchen, the washing up completed by magic. "Harry, he was like a changeling fairy's child. Small – we didn't believe he was really eleven – pale skin, jet black hair, never laughed or smiled, and he'd face down older students with those cold, steady black eyes… He was spooky – spookier than anyone else at Hogwarts."

"I didn't realize anyone from Gryffindor ever noticed me."

"I did. I didn't have any friends yet myself, and I had a habit of noticing the other outcasts."

"So when…?" Harry ventured.

"Second year. Just before Halloween. Slughorn's Potions assignments were always easy, so I used a lot of the time to make things of my own. I was brewing one to get ferret eggs, and Lily asked me how I did it. We got to talking, and we started meeting down by the lake."

Hermione came in, too. "Because Gryffindors and Slytherins couldn't be seen together or they'd get in trouble from their housemates. It's still sort of like that."

"We had a lot in common. She was muggle-born, I was a half-blood raised mostly as a muggle. There were things we missed, things we could talk about. I was really interested in the Apollo moon shots, and we followed the Apollo 17 mission together."

"Did that upset my father?"

"Your father couldn't have cared less. I don't think he'd even noticed Lily at that time."

"So then why…?"

"That was Bella. I got bullied a lot in Slytherin – because I was half-blood, because I was different. My mother told me it would happen and taught me to fight back. I hexed some of the bullies and they left me alone, but it drew Bella's attention, and she set the Lestrange brothers on me. Then she let me know that she could protect me from them if I did what she wanted. She was very good at it. Suddenly people were being nice to me, I felt like part of the group."

"What does that have to do with my father?"

"More with Sirius. I always had the feeling that Sirius was the leader, and that James followed him. Sirius hated his cousin Bella. He may have known she was already working for the Dark Lord. Anyway, the two of them stopped me in a corridor and warned me to stay away from Bella or they'd beat me up. I figured there was more danger from the Lestranges inside Slytherin than from the Gryffindors in the public corridors, so I stuck with Bella."

By this time Moody had joined them, refilling Snape's glass as he did so. "This is fascinating," he said. "Do go on."

"Wait," said Harry. "This is important. They didn't just threaten you for no reason. They had a reason, right?"

"It wasn't a fair reason. I hadn't hurt anybody. I just wanted to be safe."

"But it was a reason. What then?"

"Nothing until the next year. Then Gryffindor pulled some pranks against Slytherin, and Slytherin retaliated. Your father and Sirius found out that I was inventing and coordinating some of our jinxes, and they jumped me again." Snape looked rather pointedly at Lupin, who stared fixedly at the floor.

"As long as we're having 'True Confessions,'" Moody prompted.

"Four of us," said Lupin. "James and Sirius in front, me and Peter from behind. We pulled him into the room off the entrance hall and Sirius…"

"Forced slug juice down my throat. They left me in front of Slytherin house in a full body bind vomiting slugs… So I turned their hair green."

Moody and Hermione burst out laughing, and even Harry grinned.

"How did you do that?" Lupin demanded. "I always wondered how you did that. It happened at breakfast, but he wasn't even there. He was in the entrance hall."

"I devised a potion to turn hair green, then I divided it in half. Each half was totally harmless. I had my grandmother lace a box of candy with one half and send it to me. I put the other half into the morning pumpkin juice. The day before, I got the candy by owl, made sure they saw it, then let them bully me into giving it to them. The next morning they drank the pumpkin juice. Instant green hair."

"James and Sirius got teased so much about that one," Lupin chuckled. "The hex war started in earnest that day. We were what, thirteen?"

Moody shook his head. "No wonder Voldemort had his eye on you."

"I was moving away from Bella, though. Dumbledore and Hagrid were trying to wean me away from the occlumency, and Lily and I were deep into the space program, and I wasn't so dependent on Bella."

"That's not what we thought. Didn't you go to the Black's every Christmas break?"

"I was tutoring, but she didn't have her claws in me the way she did at first. My parents died when I was in fourth year, though, and…"

"I remember your grandmother came once, and sat with Dumbledore at the high table. She was impressive."

"Constantina," mused Moody. "Now there was a classic witch of the old tradition."

"Yeah," said Harry, "but what about my parents?"

"Ah, yes," said Snape. "James became a Chaser in… was it third year? He became very popular, and no one was more aware of it than he was. In fifth year he finally noticed Lily. He made a play for her, and she was attracted to him…"

"No she wasn't," Lupin broke in. "She couldn't stand him. She wouldn't let him near her."

Snape smiled and laughed a little, at which point Moody made sure his glass was full. "That may have been what it looked like from James's viewpoint, but believe me, Lily was attracted. You could tell by the way she looked at him when he was looking the other way."

"Weren't you jealous?" asked Hermione.

"Yes. By this time James was arguably the most popular boy in the school, and Lily was the only friend I had. He'd add one to his harem and I'd lose everything. But Lily and I were really only friends, so what I was losing was someone to talk to. Then James nearly ruined everything for himself. You see, he got this invisibility cloak for Christmas and used it to spy on me and Lily. He learned one of my spells, the Levicorpus, and started to use it himself, and teach it to others. I couldn't figure out how he knew, and accused Lily of giving it to him."

"That's why we were following you on the map. To keep you away from Lily."

"I figured that out later. I was angry with Lily, Lily was angry with James and me, and it escalated to the scene you witnessed in the pensieve. How much of that did you see, by the way?"

"Mom had left and Dad was threatening to… take off your pants." As Harry said this, Moody's eyes gleamed and Hermione looked embarrassed.

"Well then," said Lupin, "you missed one of the greatest fights in Hogwarts history."

"I don't understand," said Harry.

"I was rescued from your father by Bella Black and a cadre of Slytherins." said Snape. "When challenged by greater force, James released me. Professor McGonagall came out then to intervene in what looked like an impending battle, and she collected our wands. And then…"

"And then Severus here went for your father like a bantam rooster in a cockfight. The whole school was watching. Sirius tried to help James, but no one would let him. It took Hagrid to pull them apart, and even then Severus wouldn't stop. Dumbledore had us all up in his office, but it was James who was nearly expelled."

"Expelled? My father was nearly expelled? Not detention? Why? Why not him? Why not Sirius?"

Lupin glanced at Snape, who shrugged. "It was the Scourgify spell," Snape explained. "You don't cast a Scourgify against another person, especially not against one who… the phrase Dumbledore used was 'helpless opponent.' I don't know what else passed between James and Professor Dumbledore, since I left his office at that point."

Harry was silent. The Scourgify spell was one of the things he'd seen.

"The biggest problem for James," continued Lupin, "was that Lily wouldn't have anything to do with him. She blamed him for coming between her and Severus. She told him not to talk to her until he patched things between them."

"So that's why James started trying to talk to me. I didn't trust him, and wouldn't listen. Eventually he told me about the invisibility cloak, and I apologized to Lily."

"After that," said Lupin, "James and Lily started dating. How come you and Lily never got back together?"

Snape looked at his wineglass, which had miraculously filled itself again. "I learned that day – the incident you saw in the pensieve, Harry – that the only one in Hogwarts who could protect me from harm was Bella. That's when I became her 'puppy dog.' By the time the misunderstanding was patched up, I was too close to Bella, and Lily was too close to James for us ever to return to where we'd been. It was over."

Very softly, very quietly, Hermione asked, "Did you ever have a friend like her again?"

"No," Snape replied, equally softly.

"So my father was an absolute jerk, who split up two friends for purely selfish reasons, and even his reasons for making up his actions were from self interest." Harry was despondent.

"Yesterday I would have agreed with that assessment. Today, after seeing Regulus's pensieve memory, I'm not so sure. It would appear that by fifth year both Sirius and James had reason to believe that I was recruiting younger students for the Dark Lord. I would like you to know that that was not true. I did not want to be beholden to Bella. I did not want to be indebted to the Dark Lord. I wanted to be independent. I would never have encouraged Regulus toward Voldemort, regardless of what he may have told Sirius."

"Why did you hate Sirius more than my father? I'm sorry, but I felt that whatever was between the two of you was stronger than what you've described so far."

Snape contemplated Harry for a moment or two. The boy was perceptive, there was no doubt about it. "During seventh year, I had no problems with your father, except that he was with Lily and I was not. I don't think that was his fault. Lily wanted to make amends, and I'm sure James would have said something if he objected. I think he realized the nature of our relationship. But I didn't want to pull Lily towards Bella's circle. I mean, Bella left Hogwarts, but the others – Wilkes, Rosier, Avery… Regulus – they still surrounded me. I didn't want them to have any reason to notice Lily. So I kept her at arm's distance.

"Sirius was different. He kept after me. He followed me with that map until I alerted Filch to take it from him. He hired students from other houses to spy on me. He even arranged a plot to trap me down by the Quidditch pitch to… beat me up… Regulus stopped him that time… Did you know about that one?"

"No," said Lupin. "not at the time. We found out about it later, though. Lily was furious with him. So was James. We kind of thought he was out of control."

"Well, if Regulus was egging him on, I suppose I can understand it. At the time, it seemed monstrously unfair."

"I need to ask you," said Harry, "I'm sorry if this is a kind of thick question. Did my mom love my dad, or did she love you?"

"Love," said Snape with something close to a sneer. "There's no such thing… Are you asking if your mother had physical feelings for me the way she did for James? No, she didn't. We were friends. Your father may have been jealous, especially at first, but in the end I think he understood. I told him at the end of seventh year that if I ever heard that Lily was unhappy…"

"You'd turn his tongue into corkboard! He told us that one. It impressed him."

"It did? How nice that something I said impressed James Potter. At any rate, I thought neither about James nor about Lily from that time until… Until we knew about the prophecy and we were checking on who was pregnant."

"You didn't know they'd married?"

"All right, Remus, I knew they were married. But it was just an event. Nothing to really be concerned about. From the time we left Hogwarts, Harry, I never saw either one of them again. Nor did I see Sirius again until we met face to face in the shack. An incident in which you participated."

"I have another question," said Harry. "Did you push Sirius to his death?"

"I told him where I thought you had gone and asked him to communicate the information to the others. When he expressed a desire to join you and protect you, I let him know that he had been the lure to draw you there, and that if he went it would only draw you more strongly. He went anyway."

"Why?"

"He said it was because he loved you. I wished him luck. You don't have to believe that unless you want to."

"So Sirius died because he followed me to the Department of Mysteries. And I went there because I didn't study my occlumency lessons. If I hadn't seen that image, Sirius would still be alive. So… I killed Sirius."

"No, Harry," Snape said calmly. "Bella killed Sirius. Just as Voldemort killed Lily. I had a choice, and I chose to tell him what I'd heard from a silly woman in a hired room in a seedy inn. But he had a choice as well, and he chose to use that information to defy the prophecy, thereby insuring it would come true. I had no part to play in that decision. I provided a piece to a puzzle. Voldemort chose to kill James and Lily."

"But I knew Voldemort was using me. You told me so yourself. I wanted to see those images, and I followed them into the Ministry. So I'm responsible…"

"You know, Potter, it's very egotistical of you to claim more responsibility than is your due. It's as if you want everyone to see you as the center of the situation. You chose to go to the Ministry. Sirius chose to follow you. Bella chose to attack Sirius. Why do you think you're more important than Sirius or Bella to try to convince me that your choice was more important than his, or hers?"

"Seems to me," observed Moody, "that there was a time when you saw your choice as the overriding one, and tried to do something about it."

"That was in the heat of the moment. You haven't seen me diving off the Astronomy Tower since, have you? No."

"I understood," said Hermione, "that the tower was made 'off bounds' because a love-sick student tried to commit suicide from the top."

"Love-sick?" said Snape. "Love-sick? I'm going to kill Dumbledore!"

"You already have," said Harry.

"Oh. Right," replied Snape, but was unable to shake Harry's speculative gaze. By this time he realized he'd had far too much wine, and determined to have no more – as soon as he finished what was already in his glass.

They all, by this time in fact, had far too much to think about. It was decided that they should go to bed, and Moody steered Snape up to a bedroom next to him, where Moody would be able to keep an eye on him. Hermione was in a room between Harry and Lupin where she would be able to call out to either of them should something happen during the night.

In a house that had once held doxies and boggarts, one could never be sure.

The next morning, Hermione went into the kitchen where Snape and Moody were preparing breakfast.

"Are you going to tell him?" she asked.

"Tell whom? Tell what?" replied Snape as he beat the eggs for an omelet.

"Tell Harry about Professor Dumbledore."

Snape paused. "He knows about Dumbledore. Dumbledore's dead."

Hermione looked and sounded exasperated. "I mean what we talked about at Hogwarts, what the Baron saw, and how long it took before Fawkes started to sing, and how no one saw the body except Hagrid, who doesn't seem to be really angry with you, not like he would be if he truly thought you'd done it."

"I don't think any of that really means anything. No one could survive that fall. I think we have to face the fact that, wishful thinking notwithstanding, Dumbledore is dead."

Moody looked puzzled. "Not too long ago, you were starting to tell me why you thought Dumbledore might still be alive." His wink and the not-so-subtle contortions of his face tried to convey the idea that Hermione should be told as much as possible.

"I was mistaken."

Lupin walked into the kitchen. "Where's Harry?" he asked.

"Upstairs looking through some of Sirius's things," Hermione answered. "Professor Lupin, do you think Professor Dumbledore might still be alive?"

Lupin looked taken aback by the question. "No, Hermione. Professor Dumbledore is dead."

"But Professor Snape was telling us, me and Ron and the others, how the Baron saw what happened, and how Dumbledore wasn't damaged from the fall, and it took too long before Fawkes started singing, and we were talking about how maybe Dumbledore is still alive. And now he won't discuss it anymore. I think he's hiding something."

The two professors exchanged glances, and Snape went back to cooking the omelet. "Hermione," said Lupin, "I don't want to hurt you or make you feel bad or anything, but I have to tell you, Dumbledore is dead, and any speculation that he might not be is… a mistake."

"Well, I'm going to have coffee in the drawing room," said Moody, but neither of the other men looked at him. "Want to join me, Hermione?" The two left the kitchen.

"So," said Lupin when they'd left, "you were trying to figure it all out, eh?"

"Yes, and we'd come pretty close to a solution, too."

"What made you stop?"

"I got to see Draco's memory of that night and realized he wanted it kept quiet. Minerva confirmed it and… I've been to France."

"Does Moody know? About France, I mean."

"I don't think so. I didn't tell him."

"It's not going to be secret for long," Lupin sighed, "if Moody and Hermione start talking. I think Moody's beginning to trust her, maybe even rely on her. Do you think it's dangerous to tell either of them everything?"

"That's a moot question, since it's not my secret to tell. It's Potter who can't know. Not as long as he's looking for a confrontation with the Dark Lord. I don't want him to find out I didn't kill Dumbledore."

Lupin brought plates as Snape divided the omelet and lifted the sections from the pan. "So we…" Lupin started.

"…obey Dumbledore," finished Snape.

Over breakfast they began to discuss plans.

"I don't think," said Snape, "that there's any reason for me to remain at Hogwarts. We have Regulus's memories, we're sure now about the two Horcruxes we have. I think the next step is to see who in Azkaban is willing to join us. We already have Yaxley. If nothing else, he can 'escape' and go back to headquarters. It would be better if he had support, though."

"Avery, Nott, Yaxley, Rookwood – Malfoy now that his family's been targeted – who else?" asked Moody.

"Draco had no trouble getting Crabbe and Goyle to help him, so maybe their fathers?"

"Right," Moody grinned. "We'll take you out of school and see about getting us into Azkaban."

"We should also discuss this with the Order," Snape said, looking at Harry. "Everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing."

Harry did not respond which, since it was not disagreement, Snape took as a good sign.

They, Professor Lupin, Hermione, and Russ, returned to Hogwarts late that afternoon. Since it was the Christmas break, some of the students were not eating at their house tables, so Luna and Russ joined Hermione and Neville at the Gryffindor table.

"Did you tell her?" Hermione asked. When Russ shook his head, Hermione continued. "Brace yourselves. Russ is leaving Hogwarts."

"What?" exclaimed Luna and Neville together.

"Everything that could be done here has been done," Russ explained. "More than we thought possible, actually. We've located the cup Horcrux and, thanks to Regulus's memories, confirmed that both it and the locket are Horcruxes. Now, also thanks to Regulus, we think we may be able to recruit people with a chance of helping us inside headquarters to get the wand. There's no reason for me to stay here. No offense, but in the scheme of things it would be a waste of time. McGonagall knows and agrees."

Neville giggled. "Ron's going to be happy when he gets back."

"What about us?" Luna asked. "Are you just going to leave us here on the fringes of everything?"

"We could keep working on Hagrid," said Neville. "Maybe we could get him to tell us something."

Russ didn't respond, but Hermione said, "That's a great idea," Then she and Russ described the pensieve memories in great detail for the others.

"I'm glad Harry saw them, too," said Luna. "Do you think maybe he hates you a little less now?"

"Maybe. He was asking about his parents. We had a rather long talk, he, Lupin, and I."

After supper, Russ stepped outside into the night to look at the stars. He was thinking of Lily. Nothing specific, just a quiet recollection of her presence.

"What are you looking at?" asked Hermione behind him.

"Just the stars. It's the solstice tonight. At about five minutes to eight."

"When are you leaving?"

"Moody's coming tomorrow morning. I see no reason to delay, so I'll just take my things and leave with him."

"We'll miss you."

Russ continued looking at the stars a moment or two longer, then turned back to Hermione, grateful that the quarter moon would not be rising for some hours yet, and the light from the hall did not reach his face. "No one's ever said that to me before that I recall. I shall miss you, too."

"Are you coming back inside."

"Yeah. Give me a minute."

Hermione returned to the others, and a couple of minutes later Russ followed.

The next morning at breakfast, Moody came striding into the Great Hall. "Morning, Minerva, he bellowed. "Hope you're doing well."

"Very well, thank you, Alastor. To what do we owe the honor of your presence."

"Where's that nephew of mine? Got news for him." Spotting Russ at the Gryffindor table, Moody came over, speaking just a hair too loudly so that other students could overhear. "Bad news, lad. The court's made it's decision, and you've got to live with your mother. They've sent for you, and you're heading home. Finish your breakfast first, then get upstairs to pack."

"Yes, Uncle. Thank you."

The four students talked quietly as they ate, and Russ promised to send word to the others of everything that happened. They'd worked out a little code so that he could send owls without having important information intercepted. Then Russ and Luna went up to Ravenclaw tower where he got together his few things, including the potions book, and went back downstairs.

They said good-bye in the entrance hall. Neville shook hands with Russ, and both Luna and Hermione hugged him. Then he trailed behind Moody down the hill, turning once to wave, was through the Hogsmeade gate and gone.

Snape and Moody went first to Moody's home, where Snape had access to his own clothes and where Moody finally returned his wand to him. It was a good feeling, having his grandfather's wand, and Snape spent some time putting the wand through its paces, ignoring the clearly impatient Moody.

Moody, however, was also busy. He wasted no time sending out patronuses to the entire Order of the Phoenix, starting with Shacklebolt, requesting another meeting. The meeting was set for Christmas Day, when the Ministry would not miss any of its employees because they would all be presumed to be at home for the holiday. The only ones absent would be Arthur and Molly Weasley, who were still in Katmandu. Even McGonagall, Lupin, and Vance would be there. Even Hagrid would be there, which was going to be a problem.

"Maybe she told him already," Snape said to Moody for about the twentieth time. "Maybe he already knows, and I don't have to do any explaining."

"Why are you worried about Hagrid? He knows you didn't kill Dumbledore."

"He's going to be upset that I didn't tell him sooner that I was all right. He's going to hate me for not trusting him."

The astonishment on Moody's face was comic. "Since when did you care what Hagrid thinks or feels?"

Snape planted his hands on his hips and glared at Moody. "I'll have you know that Hagrid's been taking care of me since I was thirteen, and if I can't trust Hagrid, I can't trust anybody… Except to keep a secret, of course. He's terrible at that."

"You never cease to amaze me, boyo! Never in a million years would I have pegged you for Hagrid's ward. What else is there about you that I don't know?"

"Just about everything," Snape grumbled. "The amount you do know about me is miniscule in comparison."

They apparated to Mont-St.-Michel this time, since Snape could visualize the place and had been accepted back into the Order's good graces. McGonagall was waiting for him outside the storeroom.

"I wouldna go in right away," she cautioned. "Kingsley and Remus are preparing Hagrid now. It's going to be a shock."

How much of a shock was made evident a moment later by the roar that shook the foundations of the medieval abbey to its core. "He's what!" Hagrid thundered. "He's who! That little scamp! I'm gonna pound him! Where is he?"

Snape had hardly any time to brace himself, for at that moment the storeroom door flew open and Hagrid stood on the threshold, not in the slightest surprised to find himself face to face with Snape.

"You imp! You scalawag! Y're the poorest excuse for a wizard's brat I ever seen! What d' ya mean by letting me think ya was dead or worse all these months? And you sitting in my hut bold as brass pretending t' be somewhat y're not! I'm gonna thump ya into next week!" and Hagrid charged through the doorway to wrap Snape in a huge bear hug, tears streaming into his beard.

"And you!" Hagrid would have attacked Moody if he hadn't been holding onto Snape. "Can't trust you to care for nothing! Ya got to nourish 'im, not let 'im go off 'is feed! He's dropped a stone in weight or I'm a grindylow. You come in here, lad, and sit down. You ain't goin' nowhere 'til I've had a chance t' check you over. And what've ya done t' that arm?"

What Snape had done to the arm created a fresh explosion and a demand for information. To stall for time, Snape started at the book of Genesis, giving Shacklebolt, McGonagall, and Lupin the chance to whisk Moody away to safety before Hagrid realized that Moody had wielded the knife. When Snape got to that point in the narrative, Hagrid was back on his feet bellowing for Moody to come out and face his punishment like a man. By this time the whole Order was in the undercroft, and it took every one of them to persuade Hagrid not to tear the abbey apart in his search for Moody.

An hour later they'd finally convinced Hagrid that the operation on Snape's arm had been necessary, and Moody was able to make his appearance in the storeroom. He sat close to the door with Hagrid and Snape down the table on the far side, Hagrid's arm draped protectively over the back of Snape's chair as a clear warning to the assembled Order that Snape was under his care.

Breathing a deep sigh of relief, Shacklebolt called the meeting to order.

Snape and Moody started out with the pensieve memories, explaining how they'd gotten hold of them and then showing them to the other members of the Order. There were several things the Order wanted to discuss, the first being Harry.

"It's a good sign that he's talking to you," Tonks said. "He won't communicate with us at all. How did you manage it?"

Moody started to answer, but Snape beat him to it. "We don't ask a lot of questions. Everybody else wants information from him. Either that or his help or support. That just chases him away. We give him information, and we don't push him to reciprocate."

"But we need the information," Tonks continued as Lupin regarded Snape with some surprise. "How can we coordinate our actions if we don't know what he's doing."

Snape shrugged. "Maybe he'll give us more when he thinks he can trust us. At least he's talking to us now, not running away."

The plan to recruit Death Eaters met with skepticism.

"Surely," Elphias Doge said, "you can't expect them to follow you based on unknown conversations they may have had with Regulus Black eighteen years ago?"

"That's only part of it," Snape replied. "There's a lot of discontent in headquarters, at least there was the last time I was there. Few of the old people were actually glad to see the Dark Lord return. They'd sorted out their lives and were reasonably comfortable without him. A lot of his support in the ranks comes from new recruits who don't know him as well. The most enthusiastic of the old guard were the radical ones like Greyback and the Carrows. And Macnair. Then, when Bella and the others escaped from Azkaban, it got worse.

"Malfoy'd organized everything, but Bella wanted to be number one. Headquarters divided into camps that fought each other with as much fervor as they fought the Dark Lord's enemies. I sometimes think the Dark Lord let them squabble with each other to maintain his control of them.

"When Malfoy, the Lestranges, and the rest were captured at the Ministry of Magic, that left Bella at the top. The only one with enough seniority and experience to pit against her was me, and for a while the Dark Lord used me to keep her off balance. Now that I'm gone, Bella's probably alone at the top, and she's never been the kind to use power judiciously. I'd wager that anyone who used to be in Malfoy's camp is ready to bail out right now."

"Wouldn't Voldemort restrain Bella Lestrange?" asked Shacklebolt. "That would seem the logical thing to do."

"The Dark Lord has many strengths, but bureaucratic organization and personnel are not among them," Snape answered with a smile. "That's why Malfoy was so valuable to him. Bella shares both the Dark Lord's strengths and his weaknesses, which may be why he doesn't always notice that she has weaknesses.

"It may turn out that the Dark Lord's attempt to punish Malfoy by destroying Draco will work to our benefit. Malfoy no longer has any reason to remain loyal. If he goes, those who follow him may go, too. All they need is the hope of success and a little push."

"And you're going to push them?"

"We're going to try."

"I don't like it," Shacklebolt said firmly. "I'm not going to conspire to release dangerous criminals from Azkaban on your word that there was discontent in Voldemort's organization six months ago. I have to say no."

"Now wait a minute, Kingsley," Moody interjected. "What if we can get more recent intelligence about the mood at their headquarters? What if we can prove that there's still discontent, and that it's ready to explode? Would you reconsider?"

"I'm always ready to reconsider in the light of new evidence," said Shacklebolt. "What did you have in mind?"

"Someone who's always been in Malfoy's camp," replied Snape. "Someone that we have some control over because of the recent actions of his son – Gilbert Goyle."

A quick glance around the table showed Shacklebolt that he had consensus. "All right," he said. "Sound out Goyle and report back."

It was then just a matter of Snape's convincing Hagrid that he would be safe in Moody's hands, a feat that took the better part of twenty minutes, and Snape and Moody were apparating back to Moody's home.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Wednesday, December 31, 1997_

One of the Death Eaters assigned to permanent duty at headquarters in Birmingham was a large, ungainly man named Gilbert Goyle, whose son Gregory attended Hogwarts. Each morning he arrived, and each evening he left, and seemed to want to be as little noticed as possible. From time to time, when the weather was good, he strolled along the streets of the working-class district where headquarters was located before apparating home.

On the last day of the year, Goyle went for one of his strolls and, a few blocks from headquarters, was accosted by a dark-haired teenager. "Are you Gregory's father," the boy asked without preamble. "He's going to get into trouble if he doesn't stop hanging around with Draco Malfoy."

"What do you know about Malfoy?" Goyle asked.

"Follow me and find out," said the boy, and led him through a gate to the rear of some buildings and into a room behind a shop.

"Hello, Goyle," said a cheerful voice, and Goyle found himself face to face with Alastor Moody.

"I haven't done anything," Goyle said immediately.

"No, of course you haven't. It's Gregory who's doing things. Him and his pals Draco and Vincent. You ought to warn that boy about consorting with the sons of known felons. And felons in jail, to boot."

"Greg can't see Draco," Goyle stated stoutly. "Draco's not at Hogwarts anymore."

"Not attending," Moody agreed, "but occasionally 'at.' Greg and Vincent helped him sneak into Slytherin house not too long ago, and it wasn't on Voldemort's business." Ignoring Goyle's sudden wince of pain at the mention of the name, Moody went on. "It's kind of nice seeing that the misfortunes of the fathers don't stop the boys from being pals. I'm sure Voldemort's heart will be equally warmed at hearing Greg's still friends with Draco, and at knowing that you were careful to keep their friendship a secret."

"I didn't know."

"I know you didn't, and I'm sure Voldemort will believe you when you tell him that. Don't you sometimes miss your old buddies Crabbe and Malfoy?"

Goyle didn't answer, but glanced at the door, which was blocked by the teenager.

"My sources tell me, Goyle old boy, that you aren't happy, my no, not happy at all. Now, I hate to see people unhappy, and I've come up with a couple of solutions to your problem. The first is simple. We explain to Voldemort how unhappy you are and he, in his loving concern for you, will bend over backwards to make you happy."

"No," Goyle said quickly. "Don't do that."

"I didn't think so. Fortunately for you, you're not the only unhappy one. Malfoy's not happy either. Nor is Crabbe. I may be able to bring them here so the three of you can discuss your unhappiness and what to do about it. Would you like that?"

"I don't know."

"A cautious answer. A wise answer. I just wanted to let you know that soon you'll be seeing your buddies again. I ask no promises, no commitment. Just remember that if you tell Voldemort about this, he's going to learn about Greg and Draco. So I suggest you just don't call attention to yourself for the next couple of weeks."

"Can I go now?"

"Sure. Nice talking to you."

As soon as Goyle was gone, Russ and Moody left, too. They would never return to that room. "Are you sure," Snape asked Moody later as they ate supper, "that it was wise to tell him all that so soon? We haven't talked to Malfoy or Crabbe yet."

"Just scouting the lay of the land, boyo," Moody replied, pointing to his enchanted eye. "Goyle is not happy, and Bella and Fenrir are a big part of the reason why not. He's afraid of Voldemort – more than usual – and he's wishing he'd never gotten into this business. He's terrified about what Gregory's done, and he'd love to be following Malfoy's orders again. Not bad for a few minutes' work, eh?"

"I'm thankful the Dark Lord doesn't share your eye. Now tell me, how are we going to get to the people in Azkaban?"

Moody smiled. "I have friends," he said.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Sunday, January 4, 1998_

It is commonly understood that if you want to know the true character of any high-ranking public official, you talk to the people that official supervised at an earlier career stage. It was a clandestine joke in the Ministry of Magic that the Aurors en masse had supported Rufus Scrimgeour's appointment as Minister of Magic because that was the fastest way to get rid of him. Not only were Tonks and Shacklebolt Aurors themselves, Moody had, in addition, a large number of acquaintances ready to do him a favor in despite of their old chief.

The prison of Azkaban was not under the control of the Aurors, but it was administered by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of which the Aurors were part. They therefore had an excellent idea of which guards would be amenable to allowing 'private' visits, and when those guards were on duty. Since the mass desertion of the dementors over a year earlier, it was easier for the guards to allow outsiders into the prison.

Snape couldn't accompany Moody to Azkaban. As fifteen-year-old Russell, he would not have been allowed, being under age. As himself he risked being instantly arrested. Madame Pomfrey herself had nixed the idea of his using Polyjuice to become a third person as being too dangerous to his still somewhat fragile constitution. Moody was therefore on his own.

On pins and needles waiting for Moody's return, Snape paced the house. He had vivid images of Moody being caught and incarcerated, and of Ministry hit men being dispatched to Moody's home to arrest him as well. The longer Moody was away, the worse Snape's nerves became, though logically it would take Moody some considerable time to talk to the five prisoners they'd targeted.

When Moody finally returned that evening, it was with mixed tidings. It had been easiest talking to Avery and Nott. Malfoy and Rookwood were more cautious. Crabbe would follow Malfoy, but had to be sure.

Snape thought for a moment. "How much easier was it to convince Avery and Nott?" he asked, "because they were the ones that Regulus already talked to."

"A lot easier. As if they were just waiting for me to show up. Do you think they remembered what Regulus told them before?"

"It's possible. What are the chances of letting them talk to Malfoy and Rookwood? They might be a lot more eloquent than you, since they may still remember Regulus's words. Do you know any of the guards that would let you have that opportunity?"

"Don't know. I'd have to ask. It's worth a try, though."

Two days later, Moody got the chance. Snape suggested that Avery talk to Rookwood, since the two of them had gotten into almost equal trouble over the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. Nott would be better talking to Malfoy because of Nott's well-known tendency to distance himself from the schemes of others.

When Moody returned that evening he was far more optimistic. "You hit it on the head, boyo. Avery and Rookwood have a mutual grievance, and I got Nott to put his memory of Regulus into a pensieve. I forgot that Lucius knew him. He was Narcissa's cousin, right? Well, Lucius got kind of all choked up watching Regulus talk to Nott. Anyway, they're thinking about it and they'll let me know. Should be by the end of the week, maybe a little longer."

Friday brought something totally unexpected. As Snape and Moody were eating breakfast, an owl charged the kitchen window, flapping its wings violently against the glass. "Looks like one of the Hogwarts ones," said Moody.

The owl was carrying a letter addressed : Mr. Russell Moody - SS, c/o Mr. Alastor Moody, and the address of the house. "Guess this is for you," shrugged Moody, handing it to Snape.

Snape looked at the letter carefully. On the opposite side from the address were written the words 'Careful. Do not open in public places.' He showed it to Moody. "Does your presence count as a public place?"

"Wouldn't think so," replied Moody. "Go ahead. Live dangerously."

With some apprehension, Snape slowly broke the seal. With an explosive WHOOSH, multicolored confetti shot into the air and rained gently down on the two men. A card suspiciously like a howler emerged, but instead of berating it began to sing in the voices of five teenagers, slightly off key – 'Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you…'

Both men began to laugh. "Is it?" asked Moody. "Which?" to which Snape nodded and replied, "Thirty-eighth." He then got up to get parchment and quill and pen a quick note of thanks to his well-wishers, sending it off by return post with the owl.

xxxxxxxxxx


	13. Chapter 13 – Rescue Attempts

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Rescue Attempts**

"How are we going to get them out?" Snape asked after they got the go-ahead from Shacklebolt. "I really think the Ministry is going to balk at the idea of conniving at the escape of five notorious criminals."

"Six, because Voldemort has to think that Yaxley was in Azkaban, too."

"Six then. It has to be an inside job."

"Why?" Moody asked. "Why not from outside?"

"Because the Dark Lord won't have anything to do with it. It's going to be a surprise to him, too. If he thinks someone on the outside helped them, he'll be looking over his shoulder for a rival."

"On the other hand," Moody pointed out, "if it's from the inside, he'll think the Ministry allowed them to escape so they can be spies."

Staring at his hands, Snape said quietly, "We have a problem."

"Maybe if giants attacked the fortress."

"Cute. You're going to control a bunch of giants."

"Okay, how about a hurricane?"

"Do you know how to make a hurricane? Besides, now that I think of it, the Dark Lord did something similar with giants the summer before last. Who are you working for anyway, Moody?"

"Well then, what about an earthquake?"

Snape looked up then, a shrewd look on his face. "I know how to make an earthquake. Well, something that looks and feels like an earthquake. It would never fool a seismologist, but we don't need to fool a seismologist. We just need to fool wizards – the Dark Lord and the Ministry of Magic – none of whom, I'll bet, has ever heard of tectonic plates, fault lines, or glacial upheaval."

Trying to look as if he had, Moody said, "So, how do we do this?"

Snape thought awhile. "For the Dark Lord and public consumption, there was an earthquake that cracked and in a few places crumbled the fortress walls. The guards were overwhelmed by the task of trying to rescue people from the rubble, and in the confusion six desperate criminals (we'll take Yaxley up so he'll seem to have escaped with them) grabbed wands from unconscious guards and disapparated. Internally, of course, we'll know that the guards were your friends who let them go."

"Maybe we don't even need a real earthquake."

"There should be something for the benefit of the guards who aren't in on the plan, and for the rest of the prisoners. So if anyone else gets out and the Dark Lord asks about the earthquake, they can say, 'Oh, yes! I remember that day!' I'll need to practice, though."

"You go right ahead and practice. I'm going to go up to Azkaban and get our friends there ready."

Snape spent the next week in distant, deserted corners of the world trying to augment his old spell so that it would make every inhabitant of a stone fortress on a large rock in the middle of the North Sea believe that they'd just been in an earthquake. Luckily it didn't have to be large enough to actually cause the damage they needed. That would be done by the wizards on the inside who were part of the plan. Moody would even smuggle wands in to the escapees.

At two in the morning on the day of the 'escape,' they reviewed the plan one last time.

"Rendezvous point is outside the Malfoy mansion. You're sure it's not being guarded?"

"Calm down, Severus. There's been no one there since November. You're sure you can do this earthquake thing?"

"You just get me out of there afterwards because I won't have the strength to do it myself."

The North Sea in January can be stormy, and Snape and Moody were lashed by wind and water as they apparated in the darkness to the barren lump of rock that held Azkaban. Sea spray and driving rain soaked them; the wind howled demonically. Moody clutched Snape around the waist to keep him from being blown down as Snape pointed his wand and gathered his energy.

"_Sei..is.. mos!"_ Snape cried into the teeth of the wind, and beneath their feet the rock began to churn and buck like a living thing.

Thrown to his knees by the sudden jerk and sway of rock, Snape was saved from tumbling down the jagged stones by Moody's firm grip. Half blinded by the storm, they watched as the island and the fortress seemed to lift in a wavelike motion, then relapse into stillness.

Not for long. Suddenly there was a rending CRACK as a section of the wall split open and chunks of masonry and stone crashed and rolled into the sea. Through the fissure came an arm, a body, then two more. As each appeared, he helped the next out then disapparated. After the third had gone, Moody said, "We'd better be going, too. They'll be waiting for us."

Holding Snape steady, Moody twirled and apparated, landing them rather roughly on the winter-yellowed, neglected lawn in front of the deserted Malfoy mansion in Wiltshire. Lucius Malfoy was already there, as were Rookwood and Yaxley. Moody's wand was drawn, ready for action as he released Snape, who collapsed at Moody's feet. Around them the other Death Eaters were popping in.

"You didn't tell me he was part of this," said Lucius coldly to Moody, pointing at Snape. "What's he doing here?"

"Why Lucius," said Moody, "that little earthshaking display that got you out of prison was all thanks to Severus here. No Snape, no escape. Besides, Severus is sort of the firstborn of the free, seeing as how it could be argued that he is no longer a Death Eater."

The others murmured and shook their heads. "You don't leave the… him," Rookwood said. "You try and you're dead."

"Nevertheless, Severus here has left. Not that he did it entirely willingly, or without help. But he is no longer at the beck and call of Voldemort." Moody smiled as everyone winced in pain except for Snape and himself.

"How?" Avery asked, incredulous.

"Not a way I would recommend to the faint-hearted or to anyone not in desperate straits, but the simple fact of the matter is, I cut out the Dark Mark. Your boss was killing him. It was the only way to save his life. You should be thankful, Lucius. It was all done to save Draco."

Malfoy looked from one to the other in disbelief. "I still don't understand."

"Did Narcissa manage to communicate to you the nature of Draco's task for your Dark Lord?"

"Yes, she did. It was meant to punish me and my whole family. Where are they now?"

"All safe. All well. There have been more people looking out for you than you realize. You see, Dumbledore didn't want Draco hurt, so Snape completed Draco's task for him. Draco's out of harm's way now. Voldemort has no hold on him."

"You completed Draco's task? But that means you…"

"Killed Dumbledore. That's right, Lucius. Severus here killed Dumbledore, on Dumbledore's own orders, in order to save your son. Now that's worth something, isn't it?"

"How do I know…?"

"I saw it," said Yaxley. "I was there with Greyback and the Carrows when it happened, but I got caught. I was there when Dumbledore died. I didn't know he ordered it himself, but I know Snape did it."

Malfoy dropped to one knee beside Snape. "You did this thing for my son?" he asked.

"Dumbledore did. I just followed orders. That's why the Dark Lord was killing me. He wanted Draco to do it in order to destroy Draco. I disobeyed him. I had to die. Moody saved me."

"Wait a minute," said Rookwood suddenly. "How long have you been obeying Dumbledore's orders?"

Snape stared up at him. "Ever since the Dark Lord ordered me to become a teacher at Hogwarts. The Dark Lord knows I obeyed Dumbledore when necessary."

"That's true," said Malfoy. "They 'discussed' it at the time the Dark Lord returned. I wouldn't have been in your shoes that night for anything. I don't know how you stood it."

"It wasn't by choice, believe me. I didn't have any choice."

"We have something else to show you," Moody interjected. "Voldemort's been using you from the beginning. He's been disinheriting you and robbing you blind. You're nothing but fodder to him."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Nott.

"We, Severus that is, discovered it by accident. Because of a little spell called Peculiaris.

The Death Eaters gathered around as Snape, beginning to recover from the energy drain caused by creating the earthquake, staggered to his feet. "It's an easy one to do," he said. "Just focus on the specific area you want covered, move the tip of the wand counterclockwise in a circle, and say Peculiaris. You won't be able to see anything within the specified area that belongs to someone else. You'll see things that no one owns, things that belong to the community, and things that belong to you, but not things that belong to another person. If I use it at Hogwarts, I can still see school property, but not the private property of another teacher."

They experimented with it a bit, using small items, but since they were newly come from Azkaban there wasn't a lot of private property between them.

"All right," said Snape to Malfoy. "Try it on your house. The rest of us won't be able to see it, but you should."

Malfoy was a strong wizard with a good wand, but when he spoke the incantation, the house remained visible to everyone.

"I've never tried it on such a large scale before," Snape said. "Can we go inside and do just one room?"

Inside the front hall with its grand staircase, Malfoy once again said the spell, and this time every item in the room vanished from Snape's sight, and from everyone else's, too, including Malfoy's.

Not quite everything. Malfoy went dazedly from place to place. "Why is this vase still here, but the table it stands on is invisible?" he asked Snape.

Snape could see neither, but he understood the question. "How old is the table? How old is the vase?"

"The table has been part of this house for three generations. I bought the vase about five years ago."

"That's your answer," said Snape. "Everything you owned before you became a Death Eater has belonged to the Dark Lord for twenty years. Everything you acquired since then is your property. 'All I am and all I have are yours.' Didn't you tell him that? I did."

"But that was part of a ritual! It wasn't a literal gift."

"Apparently it was. It explains a mystery, though. Didn't you ever wonder all those years ago how your house-elf could so flagrantly go against your wishes? It seems he'd ceased to be your house-elf, except neither of you realized it. His new master had yet to give him a command. It's an interesting question to delve into. Most house-elves belong both to the family and to the house, so it's possible you entered into joint ownership with the Dark Lord. I'd be curious to see what would happen if an elf that one joint owner freed were given an order by the other joint owner. I don't think the situation has ever come up before. We might want to experiment with it."

"The bottom line," said Moody, "is that while you were pledging Voldemort your loyalty, he was fleecing you."

Just to be sure, they apparated to the homes of the others. Sure enough, each could see only those possessions he'd acquired after his initiation ceremony as a Death Eater. The group was moved by a sense of anger, of betrayal. There was, however, no more time to waste.

"You have to go to headquarters," said Snape. "The sooner you get there after the breakout, the less you'll be interrogated. The story is you've been moving slowly and apparating in stages across Britain. Let Malfoy speak for all, but agree on that general story. Remember, in many cases when challenged it's easier to plead ignorance than to invent a lie."

When they'd gone, Moody sighed deeply. "Have we just made the biggest mistake of our lives? He's going to question them, and they're going to tell him everything."

"You forget, you're dealing with people who've all been questioned before. They know what's coming, and even Crabbe isn't stupid. And they're not a group likely to conspire together."

Moody looked at him quizzically. "What do you mean?"

Snape was smiling slightly. "Before the debacle at the Department of Mysteries that got them arrested, Avery and Rookwood were rivals for the Dark Lord's favor, and Nott was siding with the Lestranges against Malfoy. That they happened to escape together due to a chance act of providence is much more believable than that they agreed to forget their differences."

"So you think this will work."

"It has a chance. Especially since the Dark Lord doesn't know that all of them were close to Regulus. Remember, they all managed to keep that from him. The Dark Lord is a great legilimens, but not an infallible one. He doesn't inquire about what he does not suspect."

News of the earthquake and escape hit the front page of _The Daily Prophet_ the next morning. The wizarding world was in a state bordering on panic for a few days, and Rufus Scrimgeour experienced a series of press conferences that turned his face several entirely new shades of purple. _The Quibbler_ had a field day reporting on what caused the earthquake, ranging from mutant sea serpents to wizards from other worlds. By the end of the week, however, with nothing more happening to stir up alarm, things began to quiet down.

Yaxley chalked a cryptic mark on the side door of the pub he and Snape used to visit – magic being detectable – to let them know that all was well, then Moody and Snape waited nearly three weeks, well into February in fact, before attempting to contact the group of Death Eaters again.

It wasn't an easy three weeks, especially since they'd decided it was safest if Yaxley didn't contact them again. Finally, when they were reasonably certain things had quieted down, they left a message using Dumbledore's old system of drop points to arrange a meeting. Three came: Malfoy, Rookwood, and Yaxley.

"Where're the others?" Moody growled.

Malfoy was not intimidated. "We decided it was better if only a few came. Rookwood and Nott are ostensibly in Bella's camp, so he represents Nott. Avery, Crabbe, and Goyle are with me, so I represent them. We wanted as few stray memories possible."

"Sounds reasonable to me," said Snape. Moody reluctantly agreed.

"And we brought you these." Malfoy laid a memory vial on the table, as did Rookwood. "They're the conversations Regulus Black had with Avery and Nott before he died."

Moody had the pensieve.

"_Did you think about what I said?" Regulus was talking to Avery across a small table on a patio._

"_Yes, and I'm not sure it's as bad as you think it is. After all…"_

"_He killed somebody to make that thing!"_

"_Not necessarily. This is a dangerous business. We have enemies. We're being attacked from all sides. Sometimes people die. He probably killed someone who was attacking him, then decided to use…"_

"_What if I told you he killed someone while he was a student at Hogwarts."_

_Avery stared at Regulus for a moment. "I don't believe that," he said at last._

"_According to Cousin Bella, he made one of those things a long time ago. He killed a muggle-born girl to do it, and Cousin Bella has charge of the thing he made. When I was still a student, he sent me one to hide at Hogwarts. Now he's given me a third to safeguard. That's three of them, Avery! He's killed three people personally to make things that will keep him alive. How many of these things do you think he's going to make? Five, ten, a hundred?"_

"_But if it's just muggles…"_

"_How can you say 'just muggles?' She was a witch! A muggle-born who never hurt him! And are you so sure he's never killed a pureblood wizard? Or a half-blood?"_

_Avery was clearly distressed. "I know he's ordered people killed. People we weren't fighting against."_

_Regulus stared at him, more incensed than before. "Ordered? What do you mean?"_

"_Look, Black, it had nothing to do with me! I didn't do it, I just know about it!" Avery paused, thought, then continued. "I heard about it from Wilkes and Rosier. They're part of a special squad that starts muggle riots."_

"_Starts muggle riots? We were told the muggle attacks were part of a movement to eliminate wizards. Now you're telling me he causes them? How? Why?"_

"_Imperius curses. Usually as part of… recruitment." Now that he had to state it in bare terms, it was clear that Avery was realizing and becoming disturbed by the brutal manipulation. He hadn't really thought about it before. "Sometimes it's against a particular person to recruit a family member."_

"_Did they tell you of any in particular?"_

"_Tell… no, but they hinted. The two I'm pretty sure of were Malfoy's father and Snape's grandmother."_

_Regulus's face went white. "You knew this? You're sitting here telling me you didn't think he was a murderer when all along you knew this?"_

_Avery looked away, clearly ashamed. "I just… never put it together before."_

"_We have to stop him, Avery. We have to convince the others, destroy these things, and stop him!"_

_Avery, looking thoroughly miserable, nodded numbly in agreement._

Malfoy turned to Snape, icy with suppressed anger. "Did you know about this?" he demanded.

Snape stared at his hands. "I found out about my grandmother. I didn't know about your father. Is this the first time you heard of it.?"

"Not exactly. Avery told me just before I came here. He didn't want me to be surprised by the news in front of you and Moody. He said Regulus's death terrified him. He even took that memory out of his head and hid it in a vial for a time – he got the idea from Regulus. I…"

"May I make a suggestion?" Snape said. "You're going back to headquarters. I'm presuming that this information gives you more reason to help us. Unless you plan to store half your own memories in vials, it would be a good idea to refrain from discussing this. The Dark Lord can read strong emotion more easily than anything else."

Malfoy's own ability to control his feelings was outstanding. He remained outwardly quite calm. "It is a sensible idea," he said coolly. "What is it you want us to do?"

"Let's see the other memory first," Moody replied.

They looked at Nott's memory, which contained nothing really new. In fact, it was clear that Regulus had talked to Nott before he talked to Avery, since during the conversation with Nott he made no reference to the information Avery 'd given him.

"There's something else explained," Snape said at the end. "I always wondered why someone like Nott would side with Bella. He didn't know the worst. Did Regulus ever get around to talking to you?" he asked Rookwood and Yaxley.

"He started sounding me out, but nothing like this. Then he was caught and executed. I tried to stay as far away from it as possible," Rookwood answered, and Yaxley just nodded agreement.

"I wonder," said Snape, "how many other people Regulus talked to before he died. There might be quite a group of Death Eaters carrying around similar memories."

"The question is," said Malfoy, "what do we do about it?"

"That," said Moody, "is why we're here. It's about the things Voldemort – sorry, gentlemen, You-Know-Who – was making to ensure his immortality. They're Horcruxes, and we think he made six of them."

From the look on Malfoy's and Rookwood's faces, they had an idea what Horcruxes were. "Six," Malfoy said. "Are you sure? Regulus was speculating more."

"Look carefully at the Dark Lord sometime," Snape said. "He didn't always look like that. It may have something to do with creating so many Horcruxes. There may be a limit to how much of yourself you can lose."

"Dumbledore thought it was six," said Moody. "We think it's six. Two have been destroyed, and one of those was that diary you gave to Ginny Weasley. That's probably what Regulus was talking about, the time he killed that muggle-born girl."

Malfoy shook his head. "No wonder he was furious. But I didn't know. I hadn't been told."

"Dumbledore destroyed a second one last year. We're looking for the others. He has one, probably at your headquarters, and we think it's a wand. We want to know where it is. Actually, we want it, but first we want to know where it is."

Snape picked up the thought from Moody. "If you can show us exactly what it looks like, it would be even better. He probably has it someplace safe, but I doubt he looks at it frequently. We might be able to substitute a look-alike. One other thing. When he took the wand, he also took Ollivander and Florean Fortescue. We'd like to know what happened to them, too."

"I'm feeling my way gradually," said Malfoy, "but it looks as if the circle of his advisors has gotten thin since I was 'detained.' Bella is the closest, but the only other two high up are Greyback and that Pettigrew fellow. Very weak leadership group, all in all, and it's hampering operations. Bella is not happy at our return. She seems to regard us – me, Avery, and Rookwood – as potential rivals. She's a bit afraid of Greyback, but treats Pettigrew like dirt. Maybe he knows something."

"It wouldn't hurt to test the waters," Moody chuckled. "If Bella's making his life miserable, Pettigrew may be ripe for picking. Sorry about that," he said to Snape. "Unfortunate choice of metaphor."

"Don't worry. I'm not offended. I'm sure I wasn't the only one."

The three Death Eaters returned to headquarters, while Snape and Moody prepared themselves for a long wait.

The first information came much sooner than expected, after only three days. _'O unknown. Sought. F north. Large hosts. Dead?'_ the message said. Moody stared at it awhile, puzzled.

"Ollivander isn't at headquarters. That much I get. Fortescue has been sent north and may be dead." He handed the note to Snape.

"I should make you think about this for five more minutes. You'd have it. The first thing is a surprise. They don't know where Ollivander is, and the Dark Lord is looking for him. That could be of major importance. It could mean that the Dark Lord doesn't control a Horcrux. I suspect Fortescue's 'large hosts' are giants. Hagrid tried talking to them a couple of years ago, but Macnair was there, too, and turned them in favor of the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord probably asked them to guard Fortescue, but no one knows if he's still alive."

"What do you intend to do?"

"Am I in charge now, Moody? I'm flattered."

"Hey, boyo, we're talking about giants. You go first. I follow."

"It might be wise not to mention this to the Order… yet. I think I need to talk to Hagrid."

Moody contemplated Snape's intent profile, his blue eye spinning madly in its socket. "You're not telling me something," he said.

"In good time," was Snape's reply.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Monday, February 9, 1998_

First Russ sent a message to Luna, it being too risky for Snape to send one from his true self, and there being no reason for Russ to communicate with Hagrid. _Make sure R.H. stays at his place during lunch on Monday. Tell the others. Russ._

On Monday, Russ apparated to the Shrieking Shack, walked along the tunnel, waited until the morning classes were over and then, with about fifteen minutes left before morphing back into Snape, exited through the Whomping Willow and made his way quietly to Hagrid's hut. His friends were already there.

"I'm serious now, you lot. I got to get up to lunch 'cause I ain't had breakfast, and you don't want someone like me to be getting hungry and out of sorts."

"But we brought you food, Hagrid," Ron insisted. "It's really kind of important we talk to you now. In private."

Hagrid looked around at the other eager faces. "All of you, eh? Well, guess I'm outnumbered." Then he looked over their heads at the approaching Russ. "Well knock me down with a feather! No wonder you're all over me. Look who's back from Californ-i-a!"

The five turned and rushed to greet Russ, showering him with questions. "Into the hut, quickly," he told them. "I'm changing soon."

Ron looked puzzled, but Luna and Hermione stared at him with wide eyes, and then looked over at Hagrid.

"That's right," said Russ. "We've reached the point where we have fewer secrets. Get inside. I've got something to tell you."

Hagrid led the way into the hut where he started preparing tea. "This is quite a surprise, lad, quite a surprise. You got to tell me all about California…"

"Hagrid," said Russ, "you're doing a wonderful job, but you don't have to keep it up any longer. I've decided that we can all know what each of us knows. The Polyjuice will wear off soon, and we can talk openly with each other."

"Well, there's a blessing," Hagrid said as he put a cup of tea in front of Russ. "I've been fair to burst with it. Are you saying they know all about you?"

"Yes, but there are things you know that they don't. You'll have to tell them, but…" He paused as the transformation started and slowly Russ became Snape in front of their eyes. "Gad, I'd almost forgotten how much I hate doing that," he said when it was finished.

"How long has Hagrid known about you?" Hermione asked.

"Since Christmas. Have you been practicing your occlumency?"

The students nodded, and Snape took some minutes to check each of them. Ron and Ginny failed his probe, but Hermione did an acceptable job, and Luna and Neville were superb.

"Good," Snape said. "You two – don't ever get captured or I'm dead. The rest of you – remember what you observed and hide what you're about to hear. Hagrid, tell them about Dumbledore."

"He's alive, isn't he?" said Hermione.

"I think so," Hagrid said sadly. "I ain't heard otherwise. Though it'd not surprise me t' hear he'd passed on, things being as touchy as they are…" He paused, for the students were staring at him in horrified shock, this being not at all what they'd expected to hear.

"But Russ said," Ron began, then corrected himself. "Professor Snape said he didn't really use a Killing Curse. He said Dumbledore was going to take care of the fall." He looked around at the others. "That's what he said, right?"

"Hush, Ron," Hermione murmured. "Hagrid just told us that Professor Dumbledore's still alive, so that's exactly what happened. Professor Snape didn't use a Killing Curse, and Professor Dumbledore took care of the fall. Right, Hagrid?"

"Tha's right, but it ain't the whole of it. There were something else working on him besides the fall. Something very dark and dangerous. At first, seeing him lying there in the grass, I thought he were dead, too. But I picked him up and carried him and 't was then I found he hadn't quite passed on. I sent for Professor McGonagall, and she come to sit by me, but there weren't nothing neither of us could do but watch."

"Why didn't you send for Madam Pomfrey?" Ron cried. "Why didn't you try to cure him?"

"Oh, lad. I been caring for magical creatures all my life. Dumbledore hisself once told me there weren't no more magical creature than a wizard. I been with them in sickness and in health, in birth and in death, and I seen them brought in after battles with dark forces, and there comes a moment when ordinary magic and healing craft don't help. There weren't nothing Madam Pomfrey coulda done, and she had others to tend to that could be fixed. Professor Dumbledore kept coming in and going out, sometimes talking t' us and sometimes waxy and still – like life and death were one of them revolving doors. Y' see, it were from dark poison he'd taken earlier that night."

"You could have taken him to St. Mungo's," said Hermione quietly.

"No, lass. That's exactly what we couldn't 've done. We had t' protect the living. We had t' protect Professor Snape. Harry wouldn't tell us much, but what he told us meant the professor was in desperate trouble. We was facing one death. We didn't want another."

"I don't understand," said Ginny, and Ron nodded as well.

"Look at what happened. Harry couldn't move, and there was Dumbledore, Draco, and a crowd o' Death Eaters. Then up comes Professor Snape and says a Killing Curse and throws Professor Dumbledore off the tower, but McGonagall and me, we knew that neither curse nor fall 'd killed him. That means Professor Snape weren't trying to kill him, or he'd 've been dead before he landed. But them Death Eaters was meant to think Snape 'd killed him. Now what're they going t' do if they find out Snape didn't even try? What'd Dumbledore think if after all that, we didn't try t' help Professor Snape? At least 'til we figured out what was going on. And then o' course, we had t' follow orders."

"Orders!" Hermione, Ron, and Ginny chorused.

"Sure. Didn't I just tell ya that Dumbledore kept going in and out? He quit his job, resigned the post t' McGonagall right there, so 's there'd be a portrait on the wall. He dismissed Fawkes, too. He knew if Fawkes were still around, people 'd wonder. A sadder phoenix I ain't never seen then when Fawkes flew off. Fair broke my heart t' hear him. But after that, Dumbledore didn't wake up no more."

"We thought Fawkes was singing because Dumbledore was dead," said Ginny.

"In a sense he were. He were singing his loss. The rest of us, we had work t' do. There were only one member o' the staff who might've known what to do about that dark poison, but he were on the run and in danger. We thought, though, that Harry could give us some information. It was still early on, ya see, and knowing something o' what the Professor 'd taken might've helped us treat him. Harry wouldn't trust us, though. Wouldn't say a word that'd help, and the Professor getting worse and worse…"

"You might have told him," said Ginny accusingly. "He'd have helped if he'd known."

"Harry's a decent lad most times," Hagrid sighed, "but he gets funny now 'n again. 'Specially where Professor Snape's concerned. He didn't never stop believing the Professor was responsible for what happened to Sirius, and there weren't no logic t' that idea at all. Dumbledore thought the safety of the Professor and Draco was worth risking hisself, and who were we t' tell him he was wrong?"

"What did you do?"

"Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout did something t' hold Professor Dumbledore stable, and when Madam Pomfrey could get to us, she added some. We contacted Madame Maxime, and when she went back t' France, she took the Professor with her. He's got a team o' French healers tending him now, and last I heard he was showing some improvement, but it's still touch and go."

Hermione shook her head sadly. "We can't tell Harry. If he found out his own actions kept Dumbledore from being healed, it would destroy him." She looked around, "What do we do now?"

"We do what Dumbledore wanted," Snape told her. "We foil and frustrate the Dark Lord at every step, and we bring him down if we can."

"How?"

Slowly, weighing his words carefully, Snape began to fill the others in. "First and most important, we have a source of information in Voldemort's organization."

"Yeah," said Ron, "we know."

That was not welcome information. "What do you mean, you know?"

"It's been in the _Prophet_. There was that breakout from Azkaban. They didn't say how many or give all the names, so we figure you managed to slip Yaxley in there so everyone thinks he broke out, too. Good one."

Snape breathed easier. "Since you know that much, it makes my story a lot shorter."

"Who's Yaxley?" Hagrid asked.

"A Death Eater who really works for Alastor Moody. He was helping me all last year, and I didn't realize how much until later."

"Well, that's all right, then. Works for Moody. He's a strange one, but all right."

"Anyway, we finally got more information out of headquarters, and we've learned that no one knows where Ollivander is. The Dark Lord is looking for him."

The students cheered. "But doesn't he work for Voldemort?" asked Luna suddenly. "He was guarding the wand."

"What wand?" Hagrid asked.

"A very special wand that we have to get our hands on," replied Snape. "It turns out, Miss Lovegood, that Ollivander may have been caretaker of the wand, but he was never a Death Eater. Everyone seems to have assumed that when he disappeared it was because he was kidnapped, or may even have gone willingly with the Dark Lord, but now it looks like that's not the case. It's still possible he took that wand with him, maybe to keep it out of the Dark Lord's hands. If so, it's good news for us. Now we have reason to assume that, forced to make a choice, he would be on our side. Fortescue is another matter."

There was a chorus of 'No…', and Neville asked, "He's not dead, is he?"

"We don't know," Snape replied. "It appears that he was indeed taken against his will, and was treated as a prisoner. Whether he had anything to do with Ollivander's disappearance, we don't know. It seems he was sent north, to be held captive by giants. That, at least, is how we interpret the information."

"Giants!" gasped Ron, and then all of them looked over at Hagrid.

"Giants," Hagrid mused. "You wouldn't happen to know which ones?"

"I would never pretend to know more about giants than the average wizard. I do know that Walden Macnair was up there about the same time you were. I imagine it's that group. It's at least a place to start."

"We could go up there, we could. Me and Grawp. And maybe Olympe. What kind of backup could you give us?"

"Right now? Me and Alastor Moody. I might be able to get more, though."

The lunch hour was nearly over, and the students had to get to their classes. Snape took a pill and turned back into Russ, and they all said goodbye. Hagrid walked with Russ to the Whomping Willow. "I got t' get a substitute for a couple of days," he said. "When ya want to start?"

"As soon as you and your brother, and Madame Maxime, can be ready."

"What about Professor McGonagall?"

"Don't mention it to anyone. Make up a reason why you have to be away for a while, but don't tell her the truth. The only reason I told the students is so that someone knows where we went and what we were doing in case something goes wrong. Trust me, Hagrid. This has to be very secret, very undercover."

"All right. I guess ya know what y're doing."

Snape left through the Shrieking Shack and apparated to his next destination which, unknown to anyone but himself, not even to Moody, was the town of Troyes in the Champagne region of France.

Snape did have a moment of panic thinking that the chateau might be protected by a Fidelius charm, but then reasoned that if that were the case there wouldn't be such an elaborately circuitous way to get there by floo powder (it probably wouldn't even be possible to get there by floo powder), and Dumbledore would not have to be using a false name. In the end, the chateau was not hard to find.

It was harder to get into.

"M. Percival. Je voudrai parler avec M. Percival." _I knew I should have studied my grandmother's books better. Is my French really that bad?_ Snape watched uncomprehending as the gatekeeper and the nurse discussed whether or not to let him in, the rapid-fire French going far too fast for him to follow even if he had known the words.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, he was admitted and taken to a beautiful, elegant sitting room He paced anxiously for a while, and then the door opened to admit an orderly with a tray of tea and small sandwiches. Right behind him was Dumbledore, walking in unassisted.

"Professor!" Snape exclaimed. "You're better."

"Alas, I see you are not," was Dumbledore's response, looking at the sling.

Snape followed his gaze. "It is a little bit better," he said. "Madam Pomfrey's sure that using the Polyjuice potion so much was delaying its healing. Maybe it will do better now that I'm no longer a student and not taking the pills."

"Not a student? Then things have progressed. Sit, sit, Severus, eat, and fill me in, as they say. I hear you did get to San Francisco."

Snape helped himself to the food, not having eaten at Hagrid's, and told Dumbledore what was going on. He summarized the San Francisco trip, told how Draco helped find the first pensieve vial, described how Harry had inadvertently helped locate the other vials and what happened at Grimmauld Place, explained how he and Moody arranged the Azkaban escape and why he was certain Malfoy and the others would help, and then told about his plans for rescuing Fortescue.

"My, my, you have been busy. And to think, Minerva knows almost none of this."

Snape bristled a little. "I wasn't the one who started the policy of keeping people in the dark."

"Touché, Severus. Touché. I am pleased that you have chosen to bring me into your plans, then."

"There was something else, sir."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows.

"I thought it might make things easier for us, going after Fortescue, if you were there as well."

"I am not sure that I agree with you. You could not inform the giants of my presence, as that would go right back to Voldemort."

"I was thinking more in terms of magical power."

"Do you have such confidence in my abilities?"

"Silly question. There would be just one little problem. We'd have to tell Moody and Hagrid that you're cured."

"Do you trust them to be discreet? I mean, we are not even telling Kingsley."

"They have been so far. Besides, If we're going up against giants, Hagrid has to be there."

"Could Lupin go as well? I believe he could be equally trusted with my secret."

"If we go after Wednesday, yes. But the full moon cycle starts tomorrow night and…"

"That was exactly my reason for asking. He might be more useful as a wolf than as a wizard. How soon could the rest of you go?"

Snape was a bit taken aback by Dumbledore's suggestion, then thought about it a moment. "I could go now. Moody as well. I don't know about Hagrid, Maxime, and Grawp. But we haven't located the wand yet."

"And this is important because…"

"It depends how quickly word gets back to Voldemort that Fortescue's been rescued. He's sure to wonder how we found out where Fortescue was, and he's going double his efforts to find the wand. He could get there before we do."

"Ah, but Severus, what if no one knows that Fortescue has been rescued? What if the giants, and therefore Voldemort, believe that he is dead?"

Snape thought for a moment. "Assuming that he isn't dead already," he said, "that might work. Will you contact Lupin?"

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Snape did not go directly back to Moody's house to await the signal from Dumbledore. About mid afternoon, Russell Moody walked into Number 93, Diagon Alley – Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes – to the delighted surprise of Fred and George. The surprise changed to glee when he informed them quietly that he needed something that would help him break into a private shop. They immediately pulled him into the back room.

"Whose shop are you…"

"…breaking into?"

"Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. I hope that isn't beyond your skill or the capacity of your 'instruments.'"

"Piece of cake," said George, "but what would you want to go in there for?"

"Yeah, said Fred. "There's nothing worth anything there. It got taken away."

"Impounded."

"By the Ministry."

"As evidence."

"Even dirty laundry, old shoes?" Russ asked.

Fred and George exchanged wicked grins. "SeveRussell, you sly old dog you, what've you got up your sleeve?" George swung his leg over a chair, settling in with his arms and chin resting on the back while Fred perched on the edge of a table. "You're not into voodoo or something like that are you?"

"I just need something of Fortescue's old enough and used enough to give a scent to a dog."

"Ooh," said Fred, "sounds like a rescue mission. You've found old Florean. have you?"

"I'm not saying."

"Where'd you get the dog?"

"I'm not saying."

"You've got to give us something. What's our pay for getting you inside?"

Russ thought for a moment. "What about a spell that would create an invisible mental fog around you so that anyone who came near or was following you would become confused? You can't use it in a large group of people, but it's great if you're trying to sneak off somewhere. I used to use it against Sirius Black when we were in school. Not that it took a lot to confuse him."

The twins' eyes sparkled. "You've got a deal," said Fred. "Do you want to go inside yourself, or do you want us to do it?"

That took a moment more thought. Russ trusted the twins completely since it was inconceivable that they would do anything to dry up a lucrative source of hexes and pranks. Only practical issues were under consideration. "I haven't seen him in nearly two decades. You saw him up to a year and a half ago. You'd have a better idea which things he would have worn. I'll wait here."

Fred went into the ice cream shop from the back, with George as lookout. It took less than fifteen minutes from start to finish. When they returned, the twins had a small bag with several items, the most promising being a pair of slippers that Fortescue had frequently been seen wearing in his shop when his feet were tired. In addition, they had an old sweater, a pair of worn gloves, a slightly threadbare winter scarf, and a cap for protection on sunny days. It was an absolute treasure trove.

The Omikhle spell took several minutes since the pronunciation was important. The brothers tried it out on each other and were quickly satisfied – more than satisfied – with the results. Russ gathered his things and apparated to Hogsmeade – where he dispatched a patronus to Lupin – and then into the Shrieking Shack.

It was still well before four o'clock when Lupin's classes would be over, and Snape waited patiently until he heard movement in the tunnel that told him someone was coming. "I'm pleased you could make it, Remus. I wasn't sure, what with the pressure of afternoon classes and preparing for tomorrow and all."

"I was wondering if you'd come," Lupin replied as he eased himself up into the room. "Everyone's been busy today because of you. Dumbledore got me and Hagrid, and we've talked. Dumbledore's also spoken with Madame Maxime. Tonks is in, too. Moody 'll be there if he recovers in time."

"Recovers?'

Lupin laughed. "Dumbledore contacted him by floo powder. Moody nearly had a fit. When this is over, he's going to kill you for withholding information for so long."

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_Tuesday, February 10, 1998_

It was the most quickly organized operation Snape had ever seen in his life. Having made his decision around two in the afternoon, Dumbledore was able to assemble his party on the north coast of France by the same time the next day, the only reason its having taken even that long being Lupin's werewolf cycle. Of the seven, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Madame Maxime would have no trouble apparating, having been to giant country before. The other four would have to go along side-by-side.

They spent the time before Lupin became a wolf discussing those plans. Shortly after five o'clock, when the sun went down, the metamorphosis took place; Lupin would now be a wolf until moonset Thursday morning. He was, however, calm and tractable, though not as humanly aware as he would have been in his normal shape. It was understood that Moody would hold him while Dumbledore transported them both. Tonks, younger and less experienced, was also the most nervous, so she went with Hagrid, while Snape apparated with Madame Maxime, who gave him a maternal hug just before they whisked to Friesland.

In their earlier trek, Hagrid and Madame Maxime had been unable to use apparation, and had walked the long way around to avoid traveling by water where their presence would have been undisguisable. This time they went straight, from Friesland to Denmark, then up the Scandinavian peninsula to the mountains where the three northern countries, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, met near the plateau area of Finnmarksvidda.

Dumbledore had warned them of the cold and dark, but not of the fabulous lights. Snape arrived, clasped in Madame Maxime's arms and bundled in a warm coat and hood that they'd magicked at the last disapparating point in Sweden, to a fairytale world of black, white, and dancing green ribbons of light that stretched out across the sky, rivaling the disk of the moon in their glory. The beauty of it took his breath away, and he stood rapt, staring up at the heavens. He was not alone, for Tonks beside him did the same.

"Never saw them before?" asked Dumbledore. "The Aurora Borealis. Not a particularly spectacular display this year – something to do with the weather in the Pacific. We would be able to see them faintly from Hogwarts, but the defenses filter the light. You will have to come again in a good year – magenta, blue, green – every color of the rainbow in shimmering curtains of light all around you."

"El Niño," Snape murmured, remembering suddenly what Brendon had said about the rain in California, marveling that it should also affect the lights in Norway.

"Sorry," said Dumbledore. "Elle who?"

"Nothing," Snape replied.

They followed Hagrid and Madame Maxime now, apparating in short hops from secure point to secure point through the mountains until they reached a spot where they could look down on the giant encampment in a narrow valley. There were few giants around.

"In caves, most likely," explained Dumbledore. "Even they do not like the cold. Though the winter of 1886, when it went down to more than sixty degrees below zero… Do you know, I actually came here that winter to experience what it was like. Terrible. Wonderful, too, but terrible. Now, where would they have Fortescue?"

That was Lupin's task. Snape had kept Fortescue's old things warm inside his heavy jacket, and now took them out for the wolf to sniff. Dumbledore bent down, and Lupin raised himself on his hind legs, his front paws on Dumbledore's shoulders as they gazed into each other's eyes. Then Lupin was gone, to locate the one scent among all the others that was not a giant but a human, and presumably the right human.

They waited. Midnight stars circled the one unmoving star nearly above their heads, and in most parts of the world the sun would already be rising – though here it would be a low pale sun several hours later – when the wolf appeared again, sudden and silent, in their midst.

"Did you find him?" Dumbledore asked, and the wolf contrived to nod its head, a feat somewhat more difficult for a canine than for a human. With the tip of his wand, Dumbledore sketched a quick map of the encampment, and the wolf pointed with its oddly dog-like snout to the northeast quadrant. Slowly they narrowed it down to one spot at the narrowest end of the valley, an opening part way up the mountainside.

"This should be fairly easy," said Dumbledore after studying the terrain for a while. "We do not need to wait around. We could be back home in front of a warm fire in an hour's time. Pureblood giants are aggressive, but not analytical. Hagrid, Moody, Snape, Tonks, you go to the far end of the valley and create a diversion. Make it a particularly noisy and ungiantlike diversion. That should draw all of them out of the caves towards you. Then Madame Maxime, Lupin, and I shall go into the cave and get Fortescue. I shall signal you with a flash of light from this point – not from the cave, in case we are not successful –when it is time to break off and return here."

It turned out to be as easy as Dumbledore predicted. The four of them apparated to the end of the valley and Moody started with a crash and blare of horns that reverberated through the peaks. Startled giants emerged from every crevice and hole around, bellowing in shock and warning. Having gotten local attention, the rescuers continued with crashes and explosions, interspersing the noisemakers with lights and fireworks.

It soon became clear that some of the giants were getting too close, but when that happened, they apparated to new spots and continued from there, always at the end of the valley farthest from Fortescue's cave. Finally, a single flare shot up from the spot higher up the mountains and, with one last trumpet blast from Moody, they apparated to rejoin Dumbledore.

"Did you get him?" The question was out of Snape's mouth the moment he appeared on the ridge.

Dumbledore said nothing, but stepped aside so that Snape could see Madame Maxime cradling an emaciated Fortescue inside the warmth of her great fur coat. His skin was pale and waxy, and his eyes dull, but he was alive.

"Is he injured?"

"It appears not, except for the very great injury that hunger and neglect can produce."

Snape approached closer to Fortescue, then his nose wrinkled involuntarily at the stench.

"Yes," said Dumbledore, seeing the movement. "I fear he has not been well treated."

The others joined them, and Dumbledore filled them in. "The first thing Mr. Fortescue needs is immediate medical attention. I shall take him where that will be possible. Madame Maxime will, of course, go as well, as she is more familiar with the place than I. Severus will also come, as he has been there before and will be known to the staff. The rest of you should return to England or to Hogwarts. You can apparate independently now, since you know the way. Severus will rejoin you in a few days and let you know what we have discovered."

"There is one thing, sir," Snape said quickly, "and it is important. We were supposed to make the giants think that Fortescue had died."

"Oh, but we did, Severus. That was why Madame Maxime had to go with Lupin and myself to the cave. She has been transporting a body from a slaughterhouse in France."

"A slaughterhouse?"

"Well, it is the body of a pig, but flesh and bone is flesh and bone. We merely transfigured it into the semblance of Mr. Fortescue so that they would think he had died of starvation or cold while they were busy with you. We had thought to bring a corpse from a morgue, but then we reflected on what the giants might do… and decided pork was preferable."

At the chateau hospital in Troyes, Fortescue was bustled away to be warmed, cleaned, fed, and healed. Madame Maxime visited awhile with the doctors, then returned to Beauxbatons. The staff hurried Dumbledore away, incensed that he'd endangered his fragile health by apparating to the far ends of the earth under extreme climactic conditions, and determined to see that he obeyed their orders for at least eighteen hours.

Snape found himself in the room he'd been given before. It was understood that he would be spending a couple of days, since it would be at least that long before Fortescue would be well enough for them to talk to.

It was a pleasant time, a comfortable time. After a leisurely afternoon reading and an excellent supper, Snape slept between satin sheets and awoke to strong café au lait and croissants. He and Dumbledore spent the next two days discussing in detail what they had only touched on earlier. Dumbledore insisted on (and enjoyed thoroughly) the full story of Snape's escapade in San Francisco, the revelation of Regulus' memories, the awareness of Harry's growing maturity, and the peril of creating an earthquake at sea in a storm.

"So Lucius's father was killed on orders from Voldemort?"

"Apparently, though at the time we thought it was muggles acting against wizards. I should have made the connection when I found out how Nana died, but I wasn't really thinking about Lucius then. It was a mixed blessing for Lucius. He lost his father, but he gained something he'd wanted for years – Narcissa."

"Has it occurred to you that Lucius may have conspired in his father's death?"

"It did at the time. It all seemed too good to be true. Fortune and Narcissa at one blow. But something happened to Lucius then. He changed, he grew colder and more focused, and he threw himself into the Dark Lord's muggle program with intense energy."

"You do not think this was a mask?"

"Why would it be a mask? It could only have helped him to applaud an event that allowed him to function freely as a Death Eater, to devote his new property to the Dark Lord. Being pleased at his father's death would have helped him. Believe me, he wasn't pleased." A thought nagged at Snape's brain, but he couldn't see it clearly, and so put it aside.

Dumbledore was particularly entranced by the Castro District concept of Halloween, and had laughed delightedly as Snape described the costumes and activities. They were, in fact, reliving the tale of the 'fairy princess' two days later when an orderly told Dumbledore in French that Fortescue was able to talk.

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	14. Chapter 14 – Relics of the Founders

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Relics of the Founders**

_Friday, February 13, 1998_

The first questions for Fortescue were about his health and his treatment. He had little to say, and it appeared that for much of his time with the Death Eaters, he was kept isolated and alone, and he could remember few specifics about his time with the giants other than fear, cold, and hunger. Much of the time he'd spent in a semiconscious state. Seeing Dumbledore helped convince him that those evil times were past, and Fortescue even wrinkled his brow at the sight of Snape.

"You're the tutor, aren't you? You used to meet pupils at the tables in front of my shop all the time."

Snape nodded, surprised and strangely gratified that Fortescue would remember something so small from nearly twenty years in the past, although at the time Snape had been following the Dark Lord's instructions and recruiting more Death Eaters, so he wasn't anxious to discuss that period.

"Do you remember what happened the day you were kidnapped, Florean?" asked Dumbledore.

"Do I! I've had months to think of nothing else. They came in the evening, after I closed up and was counting receipts. I… Oh, Merlin! Did they get Ollivander, too? I tried to warn him but… Do you know where Ollivander is?"

"Easy, easy…" Dumbledore murmured, taking Fortescue's hand. "We do not know where Ollivander is, but our information indicates he escaped." After a pause to allow Fortescue to digest this news and calm down, Dumbledore continued. "Why did you think to warn him?"

"We're just about the two oldest merchants in Diagon Alley. Been there for ages. He got worried about thirty years ago when someone left a wand with him on condition he never sell it. He told me it'd had a famous owner and nothing more, but he clearly knew more. Having it made him nervous. About fifteen years ago he told me someone had done something to alter the wand in the past. Not what they did, but just that it wasn't what it was when it was made. Then, about a year before they came for me, he got nervous again and we exchanged mirrors. Like a cat on a hot plate he was. When they broke in, I smashed the mirror to warn him. I only hope he got away in time."

"Do you know where he went?"

"No, but there are certain days when I could contact him. Not know where he is, not reach him, but contact him."

Snape asked quickly, "Did you tell the Dark Lord this?"

Fortescue gave him a strange look. "Dark Lord? Who…?" but Dumbledore reassured him. "It is all right, Florean. I can vouch that he is trustworthy. He merely has an odd way of expressing himself from time to time. Did you tell You-Know-Who about Ollivander?"

"No one asked me about Ollivander. They wanted to know about a lot of other things, old things, but not about Ollivander. I don't think they even suspected I'd warned him."

"You said there were some days you could contact him," Dumbledore continued. "What days are those?"

"Just a couple of times a year," Fortescue replied. "Solstices, equinoxes, the great feasts, and Fridays the thirteenth…"

Snape was on his feet at once, and he and Dumbledore stared at each other in surprise. "Florean," said Dumbledore quietly, "today is Friday the thirteenth. Friday, February 13, 1998."

"What time is it? What time is it?" Fortescue's agitation was frightening. He started trying to clamber out of the bed and they had to restrain him. But when Snape said, "Twelve thirty-five," Fortescue suddenly collapsed back against his pillows. "Too late," he moaned. "Too late."

"Why?" Snape asked. "What time were you supposed to contact him on those days?"

"At noon exactly. That's when, as close as humanly possible, it's Friday the thirteenth everywhere. But now it's too late. Now we have to wait."

"A month," Dumbledore sighed. "We are fortunate that it is not a leap year, and March will have a Friday the thirteenth, too."

"Maybe," said Snape quietly, "we don't have to wait that long. We're in France. France is an hour ahead of Britain. It isn't noon in Britain yet."

They moved fast. A hearth and floo powder were what they needed, and both were quickly provided. They got Fortescue into a chair next to the fireplace and waited as the clock ticked toward one o'clock. One o'clock at Troyes, and noon in Greenwich.

At the stroke of the hour, Fortescue flung a handful of floo powder into the fireplace and cried, "Wandmaker!"

They waited. After several minutes, just as they were certain nothing would happen, a soft voice came through, a voice that might have been Ollivander's – or not.

"Who is with you?"

"Friends," Fortescue said at once. "From Hogwarts."

There was no response.

"It is Albus Dumbledore," Dumbledore said, his own voice unique in the wizarding world – unique and unmistakable. "I am with Professor Severus Snape."

That brought a reaction, "Ask Professor Snape to describe the wand I sold him."

They all turned to Snape, who first looked puzzled, then paled a little, then said, "I can't do that."

"Why not?" came the voice from the fireplace.

"You never sold me a wand. I use my grandfather's."

"Good," said the voice, and Ollivander's ancient face with its round, washed-out eyes appeared in the green flames. "It has been so long, Fortescue. Are you all right? I thought you had been taken."

"I was. They held me for more than a year and a half. The two with me rescued me two days ago."

"Merlin! Are you well? I have been worried about you."

"I'd lost hope, but then they came. I'm… recovering. The healers here are good. So 's the food. I think I'm in France."

Ollivander chuckled. "Take advantage of it while you can. French food is wonderful in terms of healing. And comfort. Let us not forget comfort. Take care of yourself. What do you want with me?" This last was not addressed to Fortescue.

"We want first," said Dumbledore, "to know that you are safe. We have that, and if you want to vanish now, that is all right." Ollivander didn't vanish, so Dumbledore continued. "Next, we wish to know about the wand. There is a wand. We think you have it, and we think You-Know-Who wants it. We want to know that it, too, is still safe."

"It is still safe."

"Good. I wish to remain here to see to Florean, but can Severus talk to you? Also Alastor Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt? Not here, like this, but face to face? On your terms."

When Ollivander was silent, Fortescue added, "Moody was one of those that rescued me. I think we can trust them."

That brought another long wait while Ollivander's face disappeared from the hearth. Then he came back. "Heathrow," he said, "no magic," and disappeared.

Dumbledore and Snape got Fortescue back into bed and in nurses' care, then Snape left for England.

"Well Heathrow's a blessing," sighed Moody after Snape filled him and Shacklebolt in on what had happened. "At least it's someplace I know."

"When were you ever at Heathrow?" Shacklebolt asked. "I can't imagine any wizard having to go to Heathrow."

"Long story," Moody replied. "I'll tell you sometime. How do we get there? I presume we can't apparate in."

"Underground," Snape replied. "Piccadilly Line."

"And how do you know about the London underground?"

Snape glared at Shacklebolt. "I used to live in London. I'm sure you read about it in my file. You remember my file – the trial transcripts and everything."

"Oh, right," said Shacklebolt. "So what do you suggest?"

"I assume he's picked Heathrow precisely because wizards aren't likely to go there and he'd notice anyone apparating in. Under normal circumstances, I'd apparate to Diagon Alley and take the Tube from Leicester Square, but I still can't be seen by other wizards, and I don't want to take a Polyjuice pill right before seeing Ollivander. Are you familiar with Kensington? The Natural History Museum or the Victoria and Albert? South Kensington Station's on the Piccadilly Line. There's a Tube subway passage under Cromwell Road, and no one would see us once we were there."

The other two nodded and prepared to apparate to Kensington. Just before leaving, Moody whispered to Snape, "Are you going to tell Ollivander you nicked a wand from his shop?" Then he grinned and was gone, an exasperated Snape following shortly behind.

The journey to Heathrow would have been easy had it not been for the need to explain every step to Shacklebolt and Moody: how to purchase tickets (for which Snape had to provide the money), how to insert them into the stiles, how to find the platform… It was like dealing with children, for although Shacklebolt was more accomplished than Moody at blending in, he had never before been on the underground.

Then they complained about the length of time the trip took. At every station the same question – are we there yet? _This_, thought Snape, _is why I am blessed never to have married or had children. I'd have defenestrated them long ago._

At Heathrow, they weren't sure where to get off the car, so they chose the very first stop. It was where they were expected, for a young boy almost immediately came over and asked, "Mr. Shacklebolt?" all the while staring at Moody. When Shacklebolt identified himself, the boy said, "Would you sign this, please, sir?" and then handed Shacklebolt an envelope and ran off.

The envelope contained a brief note: 'Mezzanine level, restaurant, buy something and sit down.' Shacklebolt showed it to Snape, who said only, "You're lucky I have money," and led them to the eating area. It was a self-serve place where Snape had considerable trouble restricting the other two to something light, their appetites being somewhat larger than his pocketbook. After they were seated, Moody said, "Careful. He's coming over." Sure enough, Ollivander came up from behind Moody and joined them, carrying a small cup of coffee, his large, pale eyes shifting nervously to every corner of the restaurant.

"Why could Fortescue not come with you?" he asked quietly. "Why must Dumbledore 'see to' him?"

"He's been the guest of giants at the orders of You-Know-Who. We got him out on Wednesday, but his health is very fragile," Shacklebolt replied. There was a tacit understanding that Ollivander needed to ask the first questions, and so neither of the other two said anything.

Ollivander sipped his coffee and glanced over at Snape. "There was a rumor that you had murdered Professor Dumbledore," he said at last.

"There're lots of rumors," Snape responded coldly. "Some of them are about you."

Shacklebolt and Moody both glared at Snape, but Ollivander seemed pleased at Snape's irritation. "Never trust anyone who is too nice," he said. "Now, what did you want to talk to me about? It has been such a long time since I have been in the company of other wizards, I doubt there is anything I can tell you."

"We're interested," said Moody, "in Rowena Ravenclaw's wand."

"Such a lovely wand. So well made. I am afraid I cannot help you. I do not know where it is."

"You told me it was safe," Shacklebolt said with some exasperation.

"And I have no doubt that it is," replied Ollivander. "Just not with me. Surely you gentlemen do not think that I would run with a wand belonging to such a powerful wizard? I am not so foolish. If I had taken that wand with me, I would have been hunted to my death. No, no. Let the wand go to its master."

"Do you know what that wand is?" Moody insisted.

"It is more than it was. Further I cannot say. Perhaps you know, perhaps you do not. It is of no importance."

"Could you duplicate it?" Snape asked suddenly. "Are you good enough to make a replica of it that would fool almost everyone?"

Ollivander was silent.

"I guess not, then," Snape said, and rose to leave.

"Sit down, Severus," Shacklebolt urged. "Don't be rude."

"Why not?" Snape challenged him. "He doesn't know where the wand is. He can't reproduce it. Heck, if I gave him two identical wands, he wouldn't know which was the real one and which was the…"

"I would know that," interjected Ollivander. "I would know which was the fake."

"But you couldn't make a duplicate."

"No? I think perhaps I could."

"Not if you didn't have the original right in front of you to copy from."

"I think I could still…" Ollivander stopped. "You are trying to trick me," he said at last.

"Not really," said Moody gently. "I think we're just trying to explore our options. You do want to go back to Diagon Alley again, don't you?"

"There is something in that," Ollivander sighed. "I do miss the business. And the company. How is my shop doing?"

"It's fine," Shacklebolt replied. "The Ministry sealed…"

"It's terrible," Snape interrupted. "They let your family go in and haul away a major part of the inventory to sell elsewhere, and I know for a fact that thieves have broken in…"

"That's not true," said Shacklebolt. "We've been very careful."

"Not careful enough. It's been what? A year and a half? A lot of damage can be done in dribs and drabs in a year and a half. When did you last check to be sure the place was intact?"

That silenced Shacklebolt, and now Ollivander was beginning to get nervous. Moody came in on the other side. "Who're you staying with, Ollivander? I hope they're powerful. If he ever starts looking for you, you'll need some powerful protection."

"Just with some… old friends."

"Excellent. Old friends are the first place anyone would start looking, when they start looking. And when we start looking, he's going to start looking, if you take my meaning."

"You are going to start?"

"Oh, yes. We want that wand. We were hoping you could help us get it quick and easy. Since you can't, we have to do it the hard way. Soon as he realizes it, he's going to think we were talking to you. That's going to upset him a mite. You ever see him when he's upset? It ain't pretty."

Ollivander's eyes narrowed. "Would you let me consider this for a time? Decisions made too quickly are often the wrong ones."

"And let you go running straight to You-Know-Who with tales about us?"

"I don't think he will," Snape said sweetly. "He fled instead of obeying. It would just be like Karkaroff all over again."

"What happened to Karkaroff?" Ollivander asked.

"Let's just say he's no longer with us," said Moody. "It was kind of ugly, and I'd rather not describe it while we're eating."

"I need to think about it," Ollivander insisted, and the other three agreed.

"Just make sure we don't have to wait a month before we can contact you," said Shacklebolt, and then Ollivander was gone.

xxxxxxxxxx

"We need to talk to Fortescue," Snape sighed after they'd apparated back to France, "and find out everything the Dark Lord spoke to him about."

"You think there might be clues where he put the wand?" Moody was pouring a glass of firewhisky. Shacklebolt had returned to the Ministry.

"I hope so. The others say it isn't in headquarters, which means it could be anywhere. Well, not just anywhere. He doesn't think like that."

"What do you mean?"

"If I, for example, was trying to hide something, I'd chose a totally random place, something unconnected with the artifact or with me. I mean, let them waste their time hunting in every hole the length and breadth of Britain. I might even hide it in Tokyo, or Patagonia."

"What's Tokyo got to do with Ravenclaw's wand?"

"Nothing. That's the point. But the Dark Lord is always trying to find meaning in things. He wants to be clever and when he does things they have to have significance. He wouldn't hide the wand just anywhere. Maybe Fortescue knows where Ravenclaw lived. That would be a meaningful place to hide the wand. Then we have to know about Gryffindor artifacts."

"The last Horcrux?"

"We need to know that he at least tried to make it. Dumbledore said six. Two of significance to him personally – they're both destroyed – and four from the Founders. We have two of them. We're on the trail of the third. What about the last one?"

Moody handed Snape a glass, but said nothing, waiting.

"He would need a Gryffindor artifact, but the only two we know of are still safe at Hogwarts. Which could mean he hasn't yet tried to make the sixth, though personally I think he has, twice. But if there's another artifact and we could prove that he tried to make a Horcrux with it – then we would be sure where we stand."

xxxxxxxxxx

"They came in the evening, when he was closing up shop and Diagon Alley was pretty much empty. He knew immediately that they were Death Eaters, so he smashed the two-way mirror to try to warn Ollivander, and then attempted to get out the back way. There was a short fight in which tables and chairs got knocked over, and then they caught him and apparated to headquarters. He was blindfolded when they went in, so he probably doesn't have the secret."

Snape was reporting in the conference room at Mont-St.-Michel on his talk with Fortescue, and it was late, around eleven o'clock at night. Present were most of the Order of the Phoenix, including McGonagall. The meeting was being held late because of both the Hogwarts teachers, who could not leave until after curfew at the school, and the Ministry employees, who could not leave their jobs during the day.

"He was taken to the Dark Lord and interrogated, but it seems to have been mostly open questioning and legilimency contact. He doesn't remember actual force. He was surprised that the questions were about things he considers trivial – the history of the Founders, in particular Gryffindor's sword, Ravenclaw's wand, Hufflepuff's cup, and Slytherin's locket. He knew the least about the locket, which seemed to please the Dark Lord. He did, however, wonder about whether or not Ollivander had gotten away, now that the wand was being discussed. And that did not please the Dark Lord at all when he saw it. There was another artifact that he was questioned about, but first I'll finish Fortescue's story.

"It isn't long in telling. He was kept locked up at headquarters for nearly a year and was becoming ill from lack of sunlight, exercise, and company. Then something happened that put all headquarters into an uproar – my guess is that it was the 'death' of Dumbledore and the subsequent disappearance of myself and Draco. Fortescue was packed off to a safe house that he thinks was around Ely."

"How did he learn that?" Vance asked.

"He caught glimpses out of windows from time to time. Said it looked like fen country. Anyway, he tried to escape. More than once. The strange thing, something we haven't resolved yet, is that the Dark Lord – not the guards, who would have been happy to be rid of him – the Dark Lord seemed reluctant to simply kill him. At the end of the summer he was taken to the giants together with a quantity of gifts for the Gurg as payment for watching over him, with promises of more gifts on a regular basis if it was well done."

"That would be how to do it," Hagrid commented to the room in general.

"That was all. Maybe by giant standards he was well treated, but I wonder if the Dark Lord was hoping he'd die in a way that the Dark Lord could claim it wasn't his doing. Fortescue has lost a lot of weight, and he's quite sick. The healers insist he wouldn't have made it to spring."

"But why would You-Know-Who be afraid to kill Fortescue?" McGonagall asked. "I've never heard before that he balked at killing someone inconvenient to him."

"Actually," Snape mused, "I've been puzzled for a long time about the lack of deaths."

"What are you talking about, boyo?" asked Moody. "There've been several."

"Nowhere near as many as twenty years ago, and no muggle riots. Well, after he first came back, it was understandable. The Ministry insisted he wasn't there and he needed time to rebuild his organization. It made sense to maintain a low profile, so as not to force the Ministry to take action. Then the fight in the Department of Mysteries changed all of that. Almost at once, things escalated horribly. There was that bridge that collapsed, the giant rampage in Cornwall, Amelia Bones murder, your murder…" Snape nodded to Vance, "and that was all in one week. Then the killings began to taper off. Few and far between, no mass deaths, and for the last year, almost nothing. Attacks, yes, especially dementor attacks. But almost no deaths. And definitely none attributed directly to the Dark Lord."

Moody looked grave. "You think he may be planning to make another one of those things and doesn't want to shred himself any more than he already has?"

"I don't know. I know Dumbledore says he planned six, but I don't know how many horcruxes it's physically possible for one person to make. Maybe he doesn't either."

"Okay, boyo. Tell us about this other artifact."

"It goes back to the very beginnings of Hogwarts, and by the way, Fortescue thinks a lot of the stories are… inaccurate, especially about how old the school is. Anyway, the village of Hogsmeade wasn't a village yet, more like a homestead owned by a poor wizard named Hoga, whose property the Founders purchased and then extended out to the lake. Once the castle started going up, new buildings were put in to house the stone workers and craftsmen. One of the buildings was a bit grander than the others because it was meant to house the Founders themselves, and this building became the first of several inns built on the same spot."

"Is that the Hog's Head or the Three Broomsticks?" asked Lupin.

"The Three Broomsticks, though it wasn't called that at the time. Any way, there are quite a few stories, many of them clearly later inventions, about the activities of the Founders during that time they spent in such close proximity. You know the ones – romances, duels. Fortescue says most of them can be discounted except… apparently both Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin were compulsive gamblers. They were constantly making wagers with each other."

"I think I've heard some of those stories," laughed McGonagall, "such as the time Gryffindor bet he could throw a full-grown…"

"Yes, Minerva," said Moody, "we all have. We have to listen to Severus now, though."

"This one is more about the item they wagered than about the nature of the bet," Snape continued. "It had something to do with shooting arrows, Slytherin won, and Gryffindor gave him a little iron dagger that Slytherin prized greatly because it symbolized his victory over Gryffindor in a contest of martial skill. It was passed from generation to generation in the family."

"That must be it," said Lupin. "A dagger is a small sword, so it would fit the 'wand, cup, sword' pattern. And it once belonged to Gryffindor. Does Fortescue know what became of it?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, though it isn't generally known. In the fourteenth century one of the descendants of Slytherin, a Peverell by this time, moved to Hogsmeade to rebuild and run the third of the inns on the same location. Though he was now nothing but an innkeeper, he was proud of the Peverell blood, and hung a sign with the Peverell arms over the door. The inn was locally called the Three Sheaves. He even displayed the dagger to customers, some of whom believed the story of its belonging to the Founders, and many of whom didn't."

"Hard to believe a Slytherin would keep an inn," said Molly Weasley. "I would have expected him to crawl into a hole and die first."

"In a way he did," said Snape. "He was a miserable failure as an innkeeper and died without heirs. The building was sold to a variety of different owners over the years. The sign had to be repainted several times, and after a few generations people forgot those were sheaves and thought they were broom heads. In one of the repaintings they became broom heads, and later broomsticks. The dagger, to the best of Fortescue's knowledge, remained somewhere in the inn."

"So where's the dagger now?" asked Tonks.

"Fortescue isn't sure. He thought it was still in the inn, but after being questioned by the Dark Lord, he isn't sure. Its location hadn't been something he'd thought about before."

"Maybe," Vance suggested, "Madame Rosmerta still has this dagger."

"Or can tell us where it is," said McGonagall.

It was agreed that the next morning Lupin and Tonks would go to the Three Broomsticks to ask Madame Rosmerta about the dagger. Meanwhile the others returned to their homes except for Snape and Moody who were lodged in the abbey undercroft.

The night was pleasant and quiet. The following morning, McGonagall contacted them by floo network to say that around ten o'clock, Lupin and Tonks would go to the Three Broomsticks for a tête-à-tête and a little morning coffee. While there they would inquire, as if casually, about the dagger.

The rest of the morning passed slowly as the members of the Order gradually gathered to wait for Lupin's and Tonks's return. Finally, just in time for lunch, the two appeared in person, having apparated to France.

"Well?" snapped Moody, as they came into the conference room where they all sat, whiling away the time with cards. "What did you find out?"

"It was there," said Lupin, "but it's been gone for a long time. Madame Rosmerta doesn't know exactly when it disappeared because she didn't look at it regularly. She noticed it was gone around 1982, but it had been as much as five years since she'd seen it, so it could have been taken any time during that interval."

"We did get something, though. We were lamenting that we could never know what it looked like, and she gave us this." Tonks held out a small piece of paper with the drawing of a simple dagger on it, one with a lion's head carved into the hilt.

"Disappeared sometime between 1977 and 1982," mused Moody after the whole Order had assembled again to learn of their progress. "That certainly sounds like it might be Voldemort. So now we have another Horcrux to worry about."

"Not necessarily," Snape said. "What if that was the Horcrux he was planning to make when he went to kill the Potters? He may not have succeeded."

"If he took that dagger to Godric's Hollow," said Hagrid, "it may still be there. Well, probably not after all this time."

"Why not?" said Lupin. "The house was protected by a Fidelius charm. The secret keeper is still alive. What if the whole place is still the way it was that night?"

"We sort of already thought of that," said Hagrid, looking uncomfortably at Snape, but not elaborating.

"If the Dark Lord tried to make a Horcrux there, I'm sure he went back. After all, the secret keeper works for him," said Snape. "It's been checked once."

"We could check again," argued Lupin. "Who knows what we might find?"

"We?" asked Snape. "Were you given the secret?"

"No," Lupin admitted. "Voldemort attacked too soon. They never had a chance to share it with me."

"So the only people left alive who know the secret are Pettigrew, the Dark Lord, and Hagrid."

"Hagrid!" exclaimed a chorus of voices.

Hagrid looked embarrassed. "I had to help them with some of the heavy stuff while they were getting settled in. They showed me a note, that's how I learned. I been down there already with Harry and… Russ, but I weren't looking for a dagger."

"I say we go there and let Hagrid look around again," said Vance. "Who knows? We may still find something. Especially since now we know what to look for."

"I'm sorry," said Snape. "I'd vote against that idea. If one of the rest of us goes out, it won't hurt anything, but if Hagrid goes again…"

"What would it hurt?" Moody asked cautiously.

"It may already have hurt. I hope not. Right now we know that there were meant to be six Horcruxes, two of them are destroyed, two of them are in our possession, and one is concealed by the Dark Lord. We're starting an operation to get that one away from him. We have people in headquarters who are investigating as we speak. We're worried that he may be contemplating making another. We don't want to do anything that will push him to guard the wand more carefully or to make the next Horcrux. If we haven't already done it by having Hagrid go to Godric's Hollow once, we may do it by having him go twice. I'd rather wait until after we know where the wand is."

There was general, reluctant agreement and a few minutes pause. Then Tonks spoke.

"Are Hogsmeade and Hogwarts both named after Hoga? I can't imagine someone naming their son Hog."

Snape smiled. "Be careful of false cognates. Just because an old word sounds the same as a modern one doesn't mean it is. Hoga is Old English for 'careful' or 'prudent.'* Hogu means 'care' or 'solicitude.'* A wort is a plant or an herb. A mead is a meadow. Hogwarts comes from the name of a certain kind of lily – the 'caring plant,' I suppose. Hogsmeade means 'Hoga's meadow.' It doesn't have anything to do with pigs at all."

Tonks nodded, satisfied.

"What do we do now," asked Arthur Weasley.

"We wait."

Only later, finally back in his room at Moody's house, did the ghost of an idea that had flickered in his mind while in France return to Snape.

_Narcissa. Narcissa visited me, and I took her to Nana for a potion to help her marry Lucius. Shortly after that, Nana died in a muggle riot set off by Death Eaters to recruit me. Then Lucius's father's death made the marriage possible. Was it Narcissa? I've thought before that she may have told the Dark Lord about Nana and where to find her. Did she also persuade the Dark Lord to kill old Mr. Malfoy?_

It was a disturbing thought, and it kept Snape awake for the rest of the night.

The next step in the plan was to find and retrieve the wand, which Snape fervently hoped was still where the Dark Lord had placed it a year and a half earlier. Unable to do anything himself over the next days, fearful that the Dark Lord would learn that Fortescue was not dead but escaped, he became irritable and peevish, snapping at Moody over the least thing, not eating, and generally creating the impression that he was slipping with mad abandon into a nervous breakdown.

The simple truth of the matter was that at this moment he didn't care a thing about Shacklebolt, Lupin, Harry, Hermione, Moody, or even Dumbledore. He cared about Lucius and Yaxley, who even now might be drawing attention to themselves by asking the wrong person the wrong question.

It was as if he'd regressed eighteen years and was twenty years old again, newly returned to London headquarters from a desperate meeting with Dumbledore and Hagrid. Once again he felt the irresistible mix of terror and devotion that had sustained his transformation from a quiet little potions maker into an undercover agent. Discovery, torture, and death loomed on every side, and eighteen years earlier they'd spurred him to greater levels of daring, knowing that what he did, he did for Lily.

Now it was Lucius who flirted with death, Yaxley who risked betrayal every time he walked through the door of the brick building in Birmingham, Avery who might end his life broken and pleading for death on the floor of the interview chamber.

They were his colleagues, his comrades, and he shared their fear, their danger, and prayed for their success. Moody just didn't understand.

In the days that followed, Snape found himself thinking more and more about Regulus Black. Regulus hadn't flirted with death, he'd walked into it with eyes open and head high. That was the whole meaning behind those little vials of cloudy memory, and they haunted Snape with the reflection of his own fear.

The honest truth was, that Snape could not envision going to the Dark Lord without some plan of escape. Moody was right about that. Snape was the most survival oriented cove Snape had ever met, too, and plotting his own exit from a dangerous situation was the thing Snape knew he did best.

And key to that plotting and planning, the cornerstone of every scheme he'd ever devised to wiggle out of a tight spot, was the knowledge that he had reserved something that he could offer the Dark Lord, something that would mollify him.

When he'd returned from his first assignment to secure a job at Hogwarts, an assignment that ended in failure, he'd offered the prophecy to the Dark Lord. When the Dark Lord returned after all those years, he'd offered his own suffering and the violation of his mind so that the Dark Lord could savor the images of unhappy students and discord under Dumbledore's rule. He was already planning the elaborate scenario of what he could offer the next time he knelt in the circle of light. But to go there knowing that he had nothing to offer, nothing to appease the Dark Lord's vengeance and desire to punish, that was so far beyond the limit of what Snape knew himself capable of enduring that he couldn't even bear contemplating it.

Yet that was what Regulus had done. All the things he might have offered – the location of the Horcruxes, the names of those who did not turn away from the idea of desertion, the charms his father used to secure the Black family and home – all those offerings had been stripped away, poured into glass and placed even beyond the reach of Regulus himself, so that when he arrived at the breaking point, there would be no sacrifice he could make to save himself.

Snape had kept the first vial, the cracked one that Malfoy found in Slytherin house. He took it from his pocket from time to time over the slow days of waiting and thought what it was like to be Regulus, to sit and sift through all those memories, determine the ones most valuable in terms of life and freedom, and deliberately remove and renounce them.

_What memories would I remove? What hope of salvation would I renounce?_ But Snape knew the question was without answer. If his only option was to kneel before the Dark Lord's wrath stripped of all defenses, he would not go. He would kill himself first.

Regulus had been given that option and he had embraced it with the zeal of an ancient martyr walking into the arena to face the lions. Not just walking, but singing. What did it matter if the body broke later? That moment of clear-eyed acceptance and understanding, that was where courage lay.

And so Snape endured through the rest of February, waiting, his nerves taut, his nights sleepless, his days without appetite or distraction, cursing himself and his cowardice, – his mind, his heart, his spirit with Lucius, Yaxley, Avery, Rookwood, Nott, Crabbe, and Goyle.

And with the ghost of Regulus Black.

xxxxxxxxxx

And then it came, a crystal vial at a drop point in Manchester. Moody rushed it home and poured it into the pensieve, and together he and Snape watched as the image of Nott and Avery talking to one of Bella's operatives appeared before them. The conversation was long and circuitous, since ostensibly the two were trying to fill in the gaps of everything that had happened at headquarters since they'd been captured in the Department of Mysteries. The man had, however, been in the raid that captured Fortescue.

"_I thought we'd bought it when old Ollivander got away. That was a tight moment, I can tell you. At least we had Fortescue and the wand, but Ollivander was the real prize, and we suffered for it. He treated the wand with respect, though. Wanted to honor Rowena Ravenclaw. He wasn't half angry when Fortescue said no one knew where she'd lived."_

"_So it's still here somewhere, then," said Avery, acting slightly bored. "Now about that raid on the…"_

"_Naw. He found a place for it. Took it to London."_

"_How do you know that?" Nott asked. "You're not in his confidence."_

"_No, but having that thing around made us nervous, like a reminder of our failure. So we were happy it disappeared when he went to London"_

"_Lucky for you," Avery said. "Now about that raid on…"_

"Would you believe that!" Moody exclaimed. "Just sitting there bold as brass discussing their Lord's business!"

"Oh, come now!" Snape shot back. "Don't tell me the aurors of your day didn't sit around discussing Fudge's business. Or Scrimgeour's. It's the nature of underlings to talk about their bosses. Think how much the servants at Buckingham Palace could tell you."

"Yeah, boyo, but this is Voldemort."

"Who led them to believe that the wand was of secondary importance. Besides, this was one minute in a half-hour conversation about operations. Hardly engaging in titillating gossip. And we don't know how many irrelevant conversations there were before we got this one minute. This could be one minute out of thousands."

"Well, if you look at it like that…"

"I suggest you start looking at it like that. Those few sentences represent days, weeks, of patient work, and don't you ever forget it!"

"All right, boyo. You don't have to take it so personal."

What followed were days of research into anything that could be connected to Rowena Ravenclaw. The amount that could be directly connected turned out to be almost nothing. Fortescue confirmed the stunning lack of information that had so frustrated Voldemort. Snape started on the more symbolic.

"Did you know that Hengist's daughter was named Rowena, and that she married Vortigern?" Snape asked Moody the next day.

"Who's Vortigern?"

"It's part of the history of Merlin. What marks did you get in History of Magic, anyway?"

Moody shrugged, and Snape let the subject drop. The next day he had his revelation.

"Ravenclaw!" he shouted at breakfast. "Why didn't I think of that before?"

"Glad you're getting inspired," said Moody, bending to pick his bacon up off the floor. "What's that about?"

"It's about ravens. Who are the most famous ravens in all of London?"

"You got me there."

"The ravens at the Tower of London. And what's more, it's a clue that's easy to follow up on. We just go to the Tower and ask a Beefeater. They know everything. Then if we don't find anything, we come back here and keep working."

"When can we go?"

"It's March. It's Tuesday. It opens at nine o'clock. I've been there before. As soon as it's nine we can apparate next to the Salt Tower. Then when there are more people, we can mingle."

"Just so long as you know your way around, boyo. Just so long as you know your way around."

"Where are the ravens?" Snape asked a Yeoman Warder near the site of the Wardrobe Tower. "I thought there were a bunch of ravens here."

"It's the middle of the breeding season, sir," the Beefeater replied. "We have to be careful during the breeding season because they're trying to extend their territory and they get into fights. So we have to keep the breeding pairs separate until at least April."

"How many breeding pairs do you have?"

"Three, sir. There's Hardey and Larry – Larry's the female – and Gwyllum and Hugine, and Thor and Munin. Pity you have to miss Thor. He's the talker. Surprised a lot of people, he has. Sounds just like a man. Sounds like Derrick Coyle, in fact. He's the ravenmaster. People watch movies and they think a bird squawks when it mimics a man, but that's not true. Sounds just like a person. Thor 'd give you something to listen to. Then, of course, there's our two bachelors, Cedric and Odin."

"You have a raven named Cedric?" Snape said, astonished, and even Moody grunted in surprise.

"That we do, sir. He came down from Lincolnshire about ten years ago. Usually he's out on the grass south of us where the Great Hall used to be, but with Hardey penned up you may find him on the other side of the White Tower, where the executions took place. You take care and don't get too close, now. Ravens can be dangerous. He's got a dark blue band on his leg, if you want to be sure it's Cedric."

"Thank you. We'll be careful."

As they passed the White Tower and crossed the area where the ruins of the Coldharbour Gate were, Moody asked Snape, "You don't think that a raven that reminds him of Cedric Diggory would influence Voldemort, do you?"

"I would never place bets on what will or will not be of significance to the Dark Lord," Snape replied. "He may never have known the raven's name. Take it as an omen for us."

There was an open, stone-paved area where the place of execution had formerly been, and it was patrolled by a large, grave raven with a dark blue leg band. Snape and Moody sat on a nearby bench ignoring the people around them. "Hullo, Cedric," Snape said to the raven. Cedric cocked his head to one side and stared at them.

"Hullo, Cedric," Snape repeated.

"Hullo," Cedric said, and his 'human' voice was a deep baritone. It was easy to believe that it might be the ravenmaster's voice.

Snape reached into a pocket and pulled out a little packet that contained the bacon Moody had knocked onto the floor that morning. Glancing around and seeing no Yeoman Warder, Snape tossed some of the bacon to the bird. "Hullo, Cedric," he repeated. "Rowena Ravenclaw."

"Hullo," said Cedric, and ate the bacon.

"Ravenclaw," Snape said.

"Hullo," Cedric replied, looking for more bacon. Snape obliged.

"Granted," Moody said, "this is a smart bird, but I don't think it has the answer to our problem."

"Ravenclaw," Snape said, tossing more bacon and ignoring Moody.

"Hullo," said Cedric. He ate the bacon, then contemplated Snape again. "Grey," he said. "Lady."

Moody sat up straight, as did Snape. Snape tossed another piece of bacon. "Ravenclaw," he said again.

"Hullo," Cedric intoned, then ate the bacon. "Grey Lady. Lady Grey. Jane Lady Grey," he said, and waited.

"Thank you, Cedric," Snape said, and dumped the rest of the bacon in an inconspicuous pile next to the bench. "Thank you ever so much." He rose and pulled Moody with him. "You do know what this means?" he said.

"He knows the Ravenclaw ghost," said Moody. "The bloody bird knows the Ravenclaw ghost!"

"More even than that," Snape replied. "We're standing practically right next to the building where the Grey Lady – Lady Jane Grey – is buried. Right here in the Chapel Royal of the church of St. Peter ad Vincula."

"She's not the Grey Lady!"

"Of course she isn't. But think of the symbolism of the names!"

You cannot go into the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula unless you are a member of a Yeoman Warder's tour. Snape immediately booked both of them for a tour, and they waited patiently through information about the menagerie, the Bloody Tower, William the Conqueror and the Gunpowder Plot before they were admitted into the one place they were anxious to look at.

It was worth it. Snape, of course, couldn't see anything, but Moody could. There are times when enchanted eyes are valuable assets. "Under the floor," he whispered, and pointed out the place. The floor was a Victorian addition to the chapel that reproduced the coats of arms of all those buried there. The spot Moody indicated was under the arms of Lady Jane Grey.

They left the Tower and walked for a bit before they found a quiet spot to apparate to Moody's home. Shortly after their arrival, there was a message from Shacklebolt to go to France. Ollivander had come in out of the cold.

xxxxxxxxxx

"You can't go to Diagon Alley," Moody insisted for the thousandth time as they argued with the stubborn Ollivander. "Someone will see you and report to You-Know-Who. Just tell us where it is, and we'll get it." The object of the conversation was a replica of Ravenclaw's wand that already existed somewhere in Ollivander's shop. In the end, Ollivander gave in, and Snape took a Polyjuice pill.

Soon Russ was once again at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. "I don't want anything of yours," he told the delighted twins. "I want to break into Ollivander's again."

"Payment?"

"Acrochorthonas."

"What does it do?"

"It grows a wart. You can determine the shape. You say, Acrochorthonas pyramid, and it's shaped like a pyramid. There's a special wand movement, though."

"You have a deal."

Leaving Fred to mind the shop, George and Russ apparated to the rear of Ollivander's and let themselves in. The shop was unchanged from August. Drawing out a piece of note paper, Russ read, 'Ten and five-eighths inches, holly, unicorn hair core, slightly flexible.' "It's supposed to be in the back in a special section. Luckily the boxes are marked with a description outside."

George opened one. "Just to be sure the outside description matches the wand inside," he grinned when Russ told him to put it back.

After a while, Russ began to wonder how Ollivander ever managed to do business. There was no apparent order to the wands. Wands of different woods, different lengths, different cores, and different flexibilities were all mixed together, and none of them, regardless of wood, was ten and five-eighths inches long.

Suddenly there was a howl of glee from George. "The old sharpster!" he cried, laughing. "Trust him to milk the trade!"

Russ joined George to look. There, in a corner near the back, hidden behind a chipped sink, was a larger box containing a group of identical wand boxes labeled 'Replica wands.' George had opened one. Inside was a beautiful holly wand, ten and five-eighths inches long, unicorn hair core, slightly flexible. It was a delicate wand, a relatively simple wand, as befitted an elegant witch of the eleventh century. One side of the grip was carved with fantastic eagles, their necks and feet intertwined in a latticework of impossible curves. Otherwise it was bare of decoration.

"Are they all the same?" asked Russ.

"Looks like it," George giggled. "What if old What's-His-Name has a replica instead of the real one?"

Russ glared at him. "My life isn't complicated enough already?"

"Okay, okay. What do we do?"

"Check them first to see if they're identical."

They were identical, and the wood had even been stressed to imitate the age of the original. Russ fingered the wand nervously. It was all too easy, and he mistrusted the ease. Then he saw the price. "Son of a witch!" he exclaimed. "Who do you have to be to buy one of these things, the Sultan of Brunei!"

George looked, too, and a low whistle escaped his lips. "I bet you have to swear to keep it hidden, too. Wouldn't look good, every blue-blood wizard in the world traipsing around with old Moldywart's wand."

Russ nodded in agreement. "Like stealing the 'Mona Lisa.' No one else can ever know, but you have the pleasure of owning it. But these aren't the real thing. They're fakes."

"Good fakes, though. Expensive fakes. And telling the buyer it's dangerous to have one makes them more expensive." Russ could practically see the gears turning in George's head.

"You figure out your business on your own time. We have to get out of here." Taking two of the replica wands, two that they hadn't touched, Russ apparated back to the Weasleys' shop and from there to France.

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	15. Chapter 15 – The Sixth Horcrux

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: The Sixth Horcrux**

And there they were. They had come to a watershed in the undercover action against Voldemort, and Snape knew that everyone would soon realize it just as he did. From this point forward, every decision had to be the right one, or the battle against Voldemort was doomed to fail. Snape understandably was reluctant to bring the point up.

Ollivander gave Snape a day or two of breathing time as the pale-eyed wand master struggled to alter one of the 'false' wands to give it the feel of the one he'd guarded for so long. "I wish you would not continually refer to it as fake," he complained to Moody. "It is a real wand, a powerful wand, a wand any wizard would be proud to have. It simply is not Rowena Ravenclaw's wand."

"Isn't that what fake means?" said Moody.

"Leave the man alone," Snape hissed as he steered Moody out of the little room where Ollivander labored. "We need him. I swear, if you stood before a judge who had the power to free you or execute you at a stroke of the quill, you'd spend most of your time antagonizing her."

"But it's a fake."

"It's a replica. They sell them in museums all the time."

On the day Ollivander finished his job and laid the decoy wand before Shacklebolt, the respite was over.

"Well," Shacklebolt said, "that's it. Do we make the switch as quickly as possible, or do we find the last horcrux first?"

"I have a feeling," Snape said, "that I may know what the sixth horcrux is."

Shacklebolt and Moody waited a moment, but when Snape was clearly not going to be forthcoming, Shacklebolt said, "You need to tell us what it is. We can't make decisions in the dark."

"I don't want to say. My idea may be totally wrong, totally misleading. We need to talk to someone more expert about horcruxes than me."

"I've been hoping to be able to talk to Albus myself," said Shacklebolt. "It's been distressing how slow his recovery has been. We need to contact the healers in Troyes and find out if he's at least up to talking with us about this, even if he can't leave their care."

Moody coughed suspiciously, and he and Snape exchanged glances, a movement that was not lost on Shacklebolt. "What are you two hiding?" he demanded. "What's wrong? Albus is showing improvement, isn't he? At least those are the reports from Troyes."

"Oh, yes," said Moody. "Definite improvement. What do you think, Severus old boy? Shall we try storming the ramparts and forcing a confrontation? It's been nearly nine months – just like gestation – about time for a reappearance in my opinion."

When Snape didn't reply, Shacklebolt leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. "How much have you two been keeping from me, anyway?"

"I've just been following orders," said Snape petulantly. "It's not like I have a lot of choice."

Moody laughed. "You hide behind that like it was a shield. You've got a lot more choice than you're willing to admit. Tell me, boyo, how much does Hermione know?"

Snape glared at him.

"Hermione knows!" Shacklebolt exclaimed, leaning forward, anger beginning to simmer under the surface. "Who else are you passing information to before you think about me?"

"I had to tell the students something," Snape countered. "I mean, I needed their help to speak to Hagrid, and then to explain his absence for a couple of days while we went after Fortescue. After all, we didn't know it was going to be so easy. They know Dumbledore's alive, but they think he's still very sick…"

"Just like I did up until a moment ago. What about McGonagall?"

"She communicates with Dumbledore all the time, but I don't think she knows he went to rescue Fortescue…"

"Dumbledore was there? Dumbledore's well enough to go to the Arctic?" Shacklebolt slammed his fists on the table. "That's enough! We're going to Troyes, and we're going now!"

The nursing staff at Troyes was not happy to see either Shacklebolt or Moody, and argued quite a while about whether or not to accept them as visitors. All in French, of course. Finally they acquiesced, and the three were admitted to an elegant drawing room, though they were not yet allowed to see Dumbledore. A few minutes later, the doctor appeared and addressed Snape.

"The arm, please."

" I beg your pardon?"

"You will show me the arm, the one we treated in October. You still wear the sling. You have not been taking care of it."

Snape allowed his arm to be unwrapped. The horrid scab was still there, but was crumbling on the edges to reveal scar tissue and new skin. The doctor glared at Snape as if she suspected him of delaying his recovery on purpose. Moody was trying to look sympathetic rather than amused, but only succeeded in pursing his mouth in a silly smirk.

"There. You see. It is not healing. You have been doing the shape shifting. It is not good medicine. You are as bad as M. Percival is. With the Dark Magic you must take better care."

"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Moody. "I didn't use any Dark Magic when I cut that thing out!"

"Oho! So you are the butcher! You, who cannot tell sound flesh from polluted or muscle from nerve!"

"I happened to be alone in a kitchen with a dying man, one knife, and blood everywhere! What was I supposed to do? Consult a manual? Well, there wasn't any manual!"

The doctor stared at Moody, huffed, and turned to Snape. "You will see me in my office when you are finished with the talking. We shall see if we can improve the condition of your arm." And then she stalked from the room.

"That woman," commented Snape quietly, "has the most eloquent back I have ever seen. It positively radiates disdain. I wouldn't be you alone in a room with her, Alastor, for all the tea in China."

"Let's get on with business," Moody muttered, and as if on cue, Dumbledore walked into the room and went directly to Shacklebolt.

"Kingsley," he said, shaking Shacklebolt's hand, "it is truly generous of you to take the time to come visit a poor invalid."

"Invalid my eye," Shacklebolt replied. "You look healthier than I do."

Dumbledore shook his head. "It is true that I am up and about. I stroll in the garden unassisted, I make little jaunts up to Norway to fight giants. I am in many ways improved, but looks can be deceiving. I tire easily, and my spells are not as focused as they should be. The healers do not yet know if the debilitation is temporary or permanent."

"How's your hand, sir?" Snape asked, that having been his own handiwork.

"Actually, Severus, it is quite improved from what it was. That is, of course, no reflection on your skill. Here they have an entire facility at my disposal and that most precious commodity that you sadly lacked – time. You saved me, and they are healing me. See for yourself."

Snape examined the hand and arm, and indeed the burned, blackened flesh was giving way to new scar tissue. Even though the damage was more than a year and a half old, healing was clearly still taking place.

"Now," Dumbledore continued as the hospital staff brought in coffee and pastries, "let us all sit and be comfortable, and you can tell me what brought you to this corner of the world."

"We have," Shacklebolt told him without more preamble, "located all the Horcruxes. At least we think we have, and we need to plan our next moves very carefully."

"Really?" Dumbledore's eyebrows went up. "All of them? That was quick work."

"This is," said Snape carefully, "one of the things that bothers me. We now have control, as we believe, of three Horcruxes, and yet it's been too easy. Far too easy. You ran into magical wards and traps that nearly killed you. We plucked them like candy off a trolley. Why?"

Dumbledore peered at Snape over his glasses and the rim of a coffee cup. "Dear me, dear me, young man, do not fib. It is not like you to take credit for what you have not accomplished."

Snape, Shacklebolt, and Moody glanced at each other in surprise. "I don't understand what you mean, sir," Snape said.

"Well, quite frankly, you have plucked no Horcruxes from either wards or traps. Do not look at me like that. I am not disparaging your bravery or determination. Your wit is certainly keen. But Severus, think about what you have and where you got it from."

Snape thought, then sighed. "You're right. We haven't tried to take the cup, we just know where it is. And even when we do take it, it wasn't placed there by the Dark Lord, so it won't be guarded by the Dark Lord. The same with the locket. Regulus took it, and if he cast protecting spells on it at Grimmauld Place, the one who broke through those spells was Mundungus Fletcher. There may have been spells guarding the wand at Ollivander's, but the Dark Lord himself took that one, and while we think we now know where it is, we don't yet know what traps guard it."

"And I," continued Dumbledore, "am beginning to wonder if my experience with the ring was not the exception rather than the rule. After all, the diary was not guarded by spells. Harry destroyed it while he was weak and dying from a basilisk's poison, and it caused him no additional harm. Each of the Horcruxes we have found was in the care of a servant of Voldemort. Bella had the diary. Ollivander had the wand. The cup and locket were in the care of Regulus. Then Regulus showed Voldemort the weakness in this plan, but Voldemort did not take the diary from Bella or the wand from Ollivander. The only Horcrux that was not guarded by a person was the ring. I believe this is why there was such a powerful enchantment protecting it. And we do not know how recently that was put in place. Up until the summer of ninety-four, the Riddle property did have a caretaker, so the spells guarding the ring may have only dated from Voldemort's return."

"And you didn't really go after the locket. You went into a trap that was set specifically for you."

"Even if it had not been a trap, and I agree the green potion that I drank may not have been part of the original plan, the locket was also intended to be in a place where there would be no human caretaker."

"So we were just lucky that you'd already gone after the ones that were hard to get."

"And yet, such is the underlying irony of the universe, I thought I was going after the easy ones. I tried to get first the ring, then the locket, precisely because I knew they were not watched over by anyone. Ah well, we live and learn. Such a pity that I did not think of the trophy room. But if I had, Voldemort might have panicked and moved faster than he is moving now. But Kingsley said you had located all the Horcruxes."

Moody took up the tale. "We found out from Fortescue that there was a knife that had belonged to Gryffindor that he lost in a bet to Slytherin." He briefly summarized the history of the dagger. "We checked on Fortescue's story, and Madame Rosmerta remembers the dagger, but says it disappeared sometime between 1977 and 1982. That would be right about the time Voldemort may have located it and stolen it for a Horcrux."

"Probably 1980 or 1981," said Dumbledore.

"Why then and not earlier?"

"Because Madame Rosmerta is still alive. The death of the owner of the cup is what I believe Voldemort used to make that Horcrux. But the last Horcrux – he must have intended Harry's death to be the act that would allow him to make the last one. He would not have needed Madame Rosmerta's death."

"We want to take Hagrid back to Godric's Hollow to look for the dagger," Snape said.

"You understand, of course, Severus, that it is highly unlikely you will find it."

"Yes. The Dark Lord will already have gone back there. But there is still part of the puzzle we haven't put together yet, and I need every piece I can find."

"So you come, asking my advice? My permission?"

"Advice," said Shacklebolt. "Going back to Godric's Hollow, especially if we find the dagger, could alert Voldemort to what we're doing and he'll guard the wand more than ever. Moving in to take the wand will do the same, and cause us to lose the dagger. Either way, we run the risk that Voldemort will still be in possession of one Horcrux that we can't touch, and we'll be back to square one, powerless to destroy him."

"It is most definitely a quandary," Dumbledore said with a sigh. "If you wish my advice, I would say go after the dagger. Voldemort's plans were interrupted that night, and it is more likely that the artifact is not a Horcrux than that it is. If it is not, and Voldemort is also aware that it is not, he will not be guarding Godric's Hollow. Only after you are certain of the importance or lack of it of the dagger will you be in a position to plan further."

As the three wizards were taking their leave and preparing to apparate back to Mont-St.-Michel, Snape asked Dumbledore one more question. "Professor, do you think it's possible for a living thing to become a Horcrux?"

"Indeed, I do. I have speculated myself that Voldemort might have intended Nagini, his snake to be a Horcrux. That speculation I shared with Harry. I have speculated about other things as well that I have not shared with Harry. I wanted him to get used to the snake idea first."

"What are we talking about?" asked Moody.

Neither Dumbledore nor Snape answered that question, but Snape knew that whatever they found or did not find at Godric's Hollow would have to be shared with Dumbledore. There were clouds in the future that Snape didn't want to examine too closely. Not yet.

Back at Mont-St.-Michel, there was another clash of interests.

"I want him there when we go after the wand," Shacklebolt said. "Dumbledore has to be with us."

"Why?" Snape demanded. "He's just told us that his spells aren't focused. He could be more of a liability than an asset. We have plenty of strength as it is."

"I've been trying to work out all the angles. You tell me, Severus. What is going to happen the instant we break open the wand's hiding place?"

Snape stared first at Shacklebolt, then at the very quiet Moody, and finally at his own hands. "He'll know," he whispered.

"And what will he do?"

"He'll come. He'll come in force to stop us." Snape crossed over to one of the narrow windows and gazed out across the water. "There'll be a fight."

"And how quickly will we be able to disapparate?"

"It depends on how fast he blocks us."

"In that kind of fight, boyo," said Moody, moving to Snape's side and placing a hand on his shoulder, "you don't need focus as much as you need power. I agree with Kingsley. We'll have a better chance if Albus is there."

"You have to understand." Snape felt as if the room was closing in on him. "It's a small place. If Dumbledore's there, the Dark Lord will see him. He'll know Dumbledore's alive."

"Yes, Severus," Shacklebolt said. "That's another reason to have him there. We want Voldemort to be taken off guard, forced to be cautious because he thinks we have greater power than we do. It's for the protection of the whole group." He paused.

"I know, but… If he thinks Dumbledore's alive, then he'll think I didn't kill him."

"You didn't kill him."

"But the Dark Lord doesn't know that. He thinks I killed him. Now he's going to know he's alive and that I didn't kill him, and he's going to be… upset with me."

Moody grunted. "He's got something there," he told Shacklebolt. "I would hesitate to give Voldemort cause to actually hunt him down, especially since the fact his loyalty is questionable might be of assistance to Harry at some point in the future."

"Hunt me down? Why do you have to say things like that? Hunt me down?"

"Has it occurred to you, Severus," said Shacklebolt calmly, "that Voldemort probably believes you to be dead? He was, as I understand it, in the process of killing you when Alastor found you. Then, suddenly, the connection was gone. No one has seen you since. Well, certain members of the Order of the Phoenix, select staff at Hogwarts, half a dozen students, seven Death Eaters, and a substantial portion of the city of San Francisco, but no one likely to mention it to Voldemort. For nine months now, he's shown no interest in you or your whereabouts at all. Why would he, since he knows you're dead? Frankly, the fact that Voldemort hasn't suddenly developed an obsession with finding you I consider evidence that our newfound friends within his organization have managed to keep that secret from him and are therefore still on our side. Even if Voldemort learns Dumbledore is alive, that doesn't necessarily mean he'll think you are, too."

Moody reached over and patted Snape on the shoulder. "See what I've been protecting you from, boyo? You should be more grateful. As far as old Voldy's concerned, you're dead. He won't go hunting a dead man."

"But what if he catches me? As Russ, I mean. What if he captures someone during the fighting? Or he gets Potter? What if he learns I'm still alive? He'll put that together with the fact that Dumbledore's alive, too, and…"

Moody suddenly slapped his leg. "I've got it," he cried. "I've got a way so that if Voldemort discovers you're not dead, at the same time he'll have proof that Dumbledore is. How would that do, boyo? We could have Dumbledore's power and protect your rear end at the same time. And only five people would know the truth. Are you game?"

"Not until I know exactly what you're planning."

"Well, you'll have to wait a bit for that. First I have to see how well it'll work."

"By the way," Shacklebolt said, changing the subject abruptly, "what has Harry been doing recently? I haven't seen him since the summer."

"I have," Snape offered, glad to no longer be the subject of the conversation, "but he seldom talks about his activities."

"Probably because he doesn't want us to know them. Still, we need to know what Harry is doing or planning to do. We've reached a juncture in our plans where it's imperative that the right hand know what the left is doing. We have to talk to Harry. And if Harry is the Chosen One, he must be involved in determining what's to be done with the Horcruxes."

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_Friday, March 6, 1998_

They started gathering early in the evening at Mont-St.-Michel, Ministry employees, Hogwarts professors, ordinary wizards, and even a couple of squibs brought in side-along by someone else. Snape had never seen so many members of the Order of the Phoenix together in the same place at the same time, though no individual member was a surprise to him. At eight o'clock, McGonagall, Lupin, Tonks, Vance, and Hagrid arrived with Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. Shortly after that, the Weasleys appeared with Harry Potter.

The only major person missing was Moody. Snape fretted, Snape worried, Snape tried everything in his arsenal to speed the eventual arrival of Alastor Moody, including pacing, drumming his fingers on the table, checking the watch he'd started wearing since becoming Russ, running his fingers through his hair, asking McGonagall what time it was, and staring out the windows.

When the 'pop' of apparation was heard in the corridor, Snape jumped to his feet and headed for the door to berate Moody for his tardiness. What he encountered, there on the threshold, was not Moody. It was the long white hair and beard, the half-moon spectacles, the twinkling blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore.

A gasp arose from the gathering, many of whom still believed Dumbledore dead. Then Shacklebolt called an immediate recess and sent for a healer as Harry Potter, his face ashen and his eyes wide, showed signs of imminent nervous collapse. Everyone else was on their feet talking loudly and paying no attention to each other whatsoever.

"I told you this was a bad idea," Dumbledore said to Moody. "We shouldn't have just sprung it on them like that."

"But how else were we to prove to them how effective it could be," Moody replied in a mixture of absolute triumph and obvious irritation. "I'd say it worked perfectly."

"You may be right," said Aberforth Dumbledore, taking off glasses, wig, and beard, "but me, personally, I'd hate you for the rest of my life."

Harry spent the next half hour calming down, McGonagall and Lupin with him and the healer, while Snape lingered nearby in case they needed his help. When the situation was under control, they returned to the conference room.

"There you are," said Shacklebolt as the little group entered. "We were discussing this. It was picked up at a drop point in Nottingham about fifteen minutes age." He handed Snape a slip of parchment. Snape read it as he settled into a chair between McGonagall and Hagrid: _Regret hosts report F dead._

"That took a while," Moody commented. "We left the 'corpse' nearly a month ago, and they've only just told Voldemort that they lost Fortescue."

"They musta waited until the next delivery of gifts," said Hagrid. "Then, when they was asked to produce their prisoner, they had to admit he was dead."

"I consider this excellent news for us," said Shacklebolt, "since it means Voldemort doesn't know we rescued Fortescue, and thus has no idea we've contacted Ollivander. Do your people inside know we got Fortescue?"

"No," Moody replied. "That whole operation was kept from them for security reasons. They know nothing about the whole wand business."

"What wand business?" Harry asked suddenly.

Shacklebolt nodded to Snape, who answered, "We believe we have located the fifth Horcrux."

Harry didn't seem pleased. "Do you mean everybody here knows all about the Horcruxes except me?"

"No, Harry," said Shacklebolt gently. "You probably know far more about Horcruxes than any person in this room. Maybe than any person alive with the exception of Voldemort himself. What we know is which objects were used to make them, and where they are located."

"And you did it so easily." Harry was clearly bitter. "It took years for Professor Dumbledore to find two Horcruxes, and then taking them nearly killed him. Maybe it did kill him."

"Harry," said Snape, "Professor Dumbledore had me working on the Horcrux puzzle last year. I was already researching the artifacts. This isn't new work we're doing. It's just finishing the work Professor Dumbledore already gave us to do. Just like you." Snape was looking at his hands instead of at Harry. "Besides, Professor Dumbledore physically took the Horcruxes and destroyed one of them. We haven't touched the ones we located. That will be the hard job."

"Wouldn't they be like the ring and the locket, surrounded by deadly traps?" Harry asked.

"We're hoping they'll be more like the diary – not as well guarded since they had caretakers. Bella with the diary, Ollivander with the wand…"

"I thought Malfoy had the diary."

"No, it was originally in Bella's care. She gave it to Lucius without explaining it. That's why he thought he could use it to hurt Arthur. He didn't fully realize what it was. The ring didn't have a caretaker, and that may be why it was so heavily protected. And the Dark Lord was expecting someone to go after the locket, which was why he…"

Harry was on his feet, his wand in hand. "You knew it was a trap and you didn't tell him!"

Everyone but Snape jumped up, the quickest being Hagrid who effectively put himself between Snape and Harry. "You want to be careful waving that thing about, Harry," he said. "You're liable to hurt someone."

"If I do," Harry said coldly, "it won't be because I wasn't careful."

"I really think," Lupin said, also moving next to Snape, "that you should give Severus a chance to respond before trying anything rash."

"Okay," Harry answered, not lowering his wand. "Respond."

"I don't think I like your aggressive way of dealing with this," said Snape. "It reminds me of someone else who tends to use both threats and force to extract information. He isn't one of my favorite people either."

"Go ahead, Snape, make this easy…"

"Harry…" McGonagall and Shacklebolt started at the same time.

"Wait a minute." The new voice was Aberforth Dumbledore's. "Are you talking about my locket? The one I bought off of Dung Fletcher more 'n a year ago? The one that went missing back in…"

"August," interjected Hermione in a crisp tone. "Exactly that locket. Except it isn't yours because it wasn't Mr. Fletcher's to sell. It belongs to… Well, who exactly does it belong to?"

Harry stared at Hermione, who glared back at him. The dynamics of the situation had shifted, however, and he was losing the intensity of the moment. He turned back to Snape, lowering his wand. "Did you know about the trap?" he asked.

"Yes. And I told Dumbledore at once. I didn't know about the locket or anything else, only that the Dark Lord was furious about something and was planning a surprise for the person who was tampering with his property. Dumbledore said he would take the warning into consideration. And, Miss Granger, I believe the answer is the heirs of the late Hepzibah Smith."

"What we need to decide now," said Shacklebolt, taking charge of the meeting and motioning Harry to sit down, "is whether to seek the last Horcrux or destroy the ones we have. You should know that there are strong reasons for being sure of all four before we take action that might alert Voldemort."

"Do we know he even made another Horcrux?" asked Vance.

Harry spoke up now. "Professor Dumbledore had strong reasons to think Voldemort wanted six Horcruxes. He wasn't sure if the sixth one had been made yet. Voldemort has this snake named Nagini, and the Professor thought Voldemort might be considering it."

"Why would anyone making an object that's supposed to ensure your immortality put it into a mortal creature," asked Lupin. "It doesn't make sense."

"The snake is not relevant," Shacklebolt sighed. "We already have evidence that, however many Horcruxes can or cannot be made by one person, the last one has already been made, and more than a year and a half ago at that."

"What evidence?" Moody asked.

"Amelia Bones." Shacklebolt replied.

In the silence that greeted this pronouncement, Shacklebolt continued. "All our information says that Voldemort went personally to kill her. Why? Killing tears the soul, and for a soul by all accounts already so badly torn, this isn't a small thing. Ordinary killers kill, and tear their souls, and are hurt for it, but Voldemort killed, and tore his soul, and separated the torn parts into objects alien to himself. Thus, while an ordinary killer might have a whole soul that's shredded into banners, Voldemort has a soul that's significantly diminished. And yet he went to personally kill Amelia Bones. Why, if not to make another Horcrux? Then, after this encounter, instead of being satisfied, pleased with himself, our information is that he was angry and vindictive with all his servants. We believe it's because that Horcrux couldn't be made. Because the sixth and final Horcrux had already been made."

"Do we know what it was?" Harry asked, and Snape noted the use of 'we' rather than 'you.'

Now it was Moody's turn. "We know he was looking for things that belonged to the Founders, and Severus was working on a tarot theory that would use wands, cups, swords, and coins or pentacles. The locket sort of fits the coin idea. Ravenclaw had a wand, Hufflepuff had a cup, and Gryffindor had a sword. Except we know he didn't get the sword. We found out from…" Moody stopped and looked around. "Okay, you can't ever let anyone know. This is our deepest secret yet. We've got both Ollivander and Fortescue right here in this place and…"

What he was going to say next was drowned in cheers, the students being the loudest of all. Shacklebolt had difficulty restoring order, and then insisted that details on the rescue wait until the formal business of the Order was concluded. Moody picked up where he'd left off.

Briefly Moody summarized the story of the bet between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and then Lupin and Tonks told of their conversation with Madam Rosmerta and showed the group the drawing of the dagger.

"Of major importance is that Voldemort did not kill Madam Rosmerta to make a Horcrux of the dagger," Moody continued. "Instead, he took it and waited. Waited, apparently, for exactly the right time and exactly the right murder to make this last of all his Horcruxes. You see, by this time he'd already been told of the prophecy."

There was another silence as the members of the Order tried not to look at Harry. Harry, however, had already figured it out. "It was me, wasn't it. I mean, he was going to use my death to make the last Horcrux, wasn't he?"

"Yes," said Moody gently. "And we think it was made, because Voldemort couldn't make a new one with the death of Amelia Bones. The six were already made."

"Then we have to find that dagger," said Harry with new determination.

"That's one of the things we want to do," Snape said. "We want to take Hagrid back to Godric's Hollow to look for the dagger."

Shacklebolt spoke up. "You all understand, of course, that it's highly unlikely you'll find it. Didn't you already look once, Severus, and won't Voldemort also have looked?"

"Yes. The Dark Lord has undoubtedly already gone back there, and if he'd found the dagger Horcrux it's less likely he'd have tried to make a new one with the death of Judge Bones. This is still part of the puzzle we haven't put together yet. One of the most important pieces I've found tonight is that Professor Dumbledore spoke of the snake – that he thought it was possible for a living thing to become a Horcrux."

The Order debated a while longer, then decided that the best course of action was to investigate the clue of the dagger Horcrux before dealing with the wand. As long as a Horcrux was unaccounted for, dealing with any one Horcrux could alert Voldemort and cause him to take action that could prevent them from reaching all the Horcruxes. Even one Horcrux left in existence was one Horcrux too many.

By the end of the meeting, it was after midnight. McGonagall contacted Professor Flitwick to let him know that Luna would be off campus for the weekend with her and the Gryffindor students, and then they all went to bed.

It was agreed that the next day, Saturday, Hagrid would once again search the house at Godric's Hollow with the principal aim of locating the dagger.

As they made their way to their own rooms, Moody stopped Snape and pulled him into a corner. "What was that about only finding out tonight about the snake?" he asked. "I thought Dumbledore told you about that when we went visiting. Or had you forgotten?"

"It's a good thing at least one of us keeps his wits about him," Snape replied. "How could I have gotten that bit of information from Dumbledore? Dumbledore's dead. Potter knows he's dead, and Potter has to keep knowing he's dead for as long as possible. I'm quite grateful that it came up tonight. Now I can use it without having to worry about revealing Dumbledore's secret to the wrong people. By the way, brilliant idea about Aberforth."

"Think so?" Moody chuckled. "I thought it was a neat stunt myself, if I do say so."

"Does Aberforth know?"

"Of course he… know what?"

"About his brother. That Professor Dumbledore is alive and well."

"Eh, well, I did have to tell him that part. They're going to have to make a switch, now, aren't they, and it wouldn't do for it to come to Aberforth as a surprise, now would it?"

They retired to their rooms then, for the next day would be busy.

On this second occasion, the party was composed of Russ, Moody, Hagrid, Lupin, Tonks, and Harry. Snape was a little nervous about going as Russ since the doctor in Troyes had been adamant that the Polyjuice potion was impeding the healing of his arm, but there was still a decent chance of them being seen by witch or wizard in this place and having word get back to Voldemort.

Hagrid took with him the drawing on the piece of parchment to be sure what the dagger looked like. It was then merely a matter of the rest of them sitting around some distance away on the Devon moors picnicking while Hagrid went into the Potters' cottage. The picnic was quite pleasant, once they'd removed the mementos left by the local sheep and magicked in a few chairs and a table.

It took Hagrid a long time. The others were beginning to talk about the possibility of bottomless pits and time warps – in jest of course, though Harry did look a little nervous after a while – when Hagrid reappeared.

"That were quite a job, gentlemen, and lady," Hagrid puffed. "That were quite a job indeed, I don't mind telling you. What with things t' lift and clear away, and sift through, too – that sifting takes time."

"But did you get anything?" Moody insisted.

"Well now, I were coming t' that. It were not where I expected t' find it. I thought it might be around where Harry's crib were, that being, well… you know. But it turned out t' be nearer the door, and on top of things, like someone tossed it aside."

Hagrid reached into a pocket and removed a piece of cloth in which he'd wrapped the dagger. It was the right length and shape, and you could make out that there had once been a lion's head carved on the hilt, but it had rusted over time in the damaged house, exposed to the elements as it was, and now looked more like something one would want to throw out rather than make a Horcrux from.

"Do you think it was ever a Horcrux?" asked Lupin.

"I doubt it," said Russ. "I think it moved and was tossed aside because the Dark Lord came here looking for it, found it, and threw it away as useless. If it was a Horcrux, he'd have kept it."

"Maybe it was, and he took the soul fragment out to put into another one."

"It's possible, but I think that would have damaged the dagger in a different way. This is just normal weather damage."

"We could…" Hagrid started brightly, but Russ interrupted him.

"I'm going to take it back and study it. It still might give us some clues."

"When you're finished with it," Harry said, "I'd like to have it."

"I don't see why not," Russ replied.

With that, they all apparated back to the French headquarters of the Order to report on the relative success of their mission, Russ delaying to the last to talk with Hagrid. "You were going to suggest consulting Dumbledore, weren't you?" he said, looking up at the half-giant with his hands on his hips – an excellent imitation of Molly Weasley, though he didn't realize it. "You were going to mention talking to Dumbledore right here in front of Harry!"

"Well, of course I was thinking of mentioning it, but…" Hagrid stopped. "That's right, ain't it. Harry ain't supposed t' know."

"You know," Russ snapped, "if Harry shows the Dark Lord that Dumbledore is still alive and gets me killed, I am coming back from the grave to haunt you. You know that, don't you?"

"Aye, and I wouldn't blame ya neither."

With that, both disapparated, Snape in a huff, and Hagrid somewhat crestfallen.

Moody cornered Snape before the meeting. "It's Harry, isn't it?"

"You tell me what you think."

"Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow that night to kill a rival and make a Horcrux. He took an artifact of Godric Gryffindor's for precisely that purpose and he succeeded, though not the way he'd planned. He nearly destroyed himself, but he put a fragment of his soul into a baby who grew up to have both his Parseltongue and, if what you say is true, his legilimens ability, even though Harry never realized on his own he had either. Harry is, unintentionally, the sixth Horcrux. We still need to know two things, though."

"Which are?" Snape asked.

"Has Voldemort realized that Harry is his Horcrux? And whose death ripped his soul then to provide the fragment that went into Harry?"

Those were, of course, also two of Snape's biggest questions. _Whose death? Lily's? Did she unwittingly help make her son a Horcrux?_

The rusty dagger lay on the conference table when the Order of the Phoenix gathered that evening.

"That's it, eh?" said Dedalus Diggle, reaching out a hand to touch it, a hand that paused and then withdrew. "Is it…"

"No," Snape said. "It isn't a Horcrux."

They passed the dagger around, together with the drawing Madam Rosmerta had given them. Some merely glanced at the two; others compared them in detail. The consensus was that it was the dagger from the Three Broomsticks.

"What was it doing in the Potters' house, that's the biggest question," said Snape when the dagger lay again on the table, but he wasn't asking a question. "It was stolen from the Three Broomsticks, not given away, and so we can assume that James and Lily didn't take it there. Remus, did you ever hear them mention a Gryffindor dagger?"

Lupin shook his head. "And if he had something like that, he'd have told us."

"After the Fidelius charm was performed," Snape continued, "only six people ever entered that house again that we know of: James, Lily, Hagrid, the Dark Lord, Pettigrew, and Harry – though Harry might not count since he may never have left the house after the spell was cast. And we're not sure if Pettigrew accompanied the Dark Lord on his visits. So we can reasonably assume the Dark Lord carried the dagger, and we suspect it was to make the sixth Horcrux."

"Are we sure the others were made earlier?" asked Hestia Jones.

"As sure as we can be about anything. Bella had the diary, Regulus the locket and cup, Ollivander the wand, and the ring was probably one of the first made. Only the dagger, the symbolic sword, remained. But it did not become a Horcrux. It lies here, damaged by the weather, and it is not a Horcrux. Yet something is a Horcrux because he tried to make yet another with the death of Amelia Bones and did not succeed. We just have to find out what it…"

"No, we don't," Harry said suddenly. "We know what it is." In the pause that followed, it was understood that the next to speak had to be Harry Potter. A very reluctant Harry Potter. Finally he cleared his throat. "It's me, isn't it? That's why I'm a parselmouth. That's why I can read minds."

"We've come to the same conclusion, lad," said Moody sadly. "I'm sorry."

Harry giggled, a very nervous giggle. "I should have paid more attention to Professor Trelawney. She always told me I was going to die young. Guess she was right after all."

"Miracles do occasionally happen," commented McGonagall, and her tone said she, too, was talking about Trelawney.

"She has been right on one or two occasions," said Snape quietly, "but not always."

"Maybe she's been right more often, and we just didn't realize it," Harry said. "She once told me I was born in the winter. I thought she was just faking, but Voldemort was born in the winter. Do think she was reading part of him instead of me?"

"How do you know when You-Know-Who was born, dear?" Molly Weasley asked.

It was time for everything to be revealed, and Harry spent the next hour telling the story of Merope Gaunt and the orphan Tom Riddle. Snape already knew most of it, and some of the others knew bits and pieces, but for most it was entirely new.

Bill Weasley summed up the feeling of the whole room at the end. "Merlin!" he exclaimed. "Lord freaking Voldemort is a muggle-raised half-blood!"

"Of course," Hagrid said matter-of-factly. "They're all three of 'em muggle-raised half-bloods. Professor Dumbledore always thought that was kind of important."

"Three of them?" They were all looking at Hagrid now, but Shacklebolt's question cut through the murmur of voices. "Who's the third?"

"Why, Professor Snape, of course. Professor Dumbledore knew from the start." Hagrid glanced around at the incredulous faces. "Don't tell me ye don't see it," he said, "when it's plain as the nose on your face. All of 'em dark and thin, unhappy childhood and talent ya don't see in a wizard but once in a generation. Tom, he was a manipulator and cold as a fish. Severus, he was always on guard and just wanted to be left alone. Harry, he wants everyone to like him. Tom and Harry are the opposites, and Severus the bridge between 'em. That's what Professor Dumbledore always said."

All eyes were now on Snape, who rested his face in his hands for a moment to avoid them, then sighed and sat up. "All this may be very interesting to some," he said, "but it detracts from the main business, which is to decide what we do about the horcruxes. I personally would very much like to get back to that."

It was now accepted that Harry was part of the team, and the Order quickly determined that they had to assume that the destruction of either of the Horcruxes in their possession would alert Voldemort. The next course of action was thus to gain control of the wand Horcrux. That was the easy decision. The hard part was deciding how.

"It may be heavily guarded, like the ring," Shacklebolt opined. "It'll be dangerous for any of us to remove it from its resting place. In addition, we'll have to assume that we'll be interrupted by Voldemort, probably accompanied by a crew of Death Eaters."

"That means we need to be there in force," Moody added. "The whole Order if necessary. Except you, of course." This last was addressed to Shacklebolt. "We still want him to believe that you're just Ministry. Same with the professors. And you, Molly. We have enough Weasleys as it is. And you, Severus. You can't go either. We can't risk him seeing you."

"Unfortunately," Snape replied, "I'm the only one with experience healing someone attacked by one of these guarding spells. It may turn out that you need me there very much."

"Severus is right," said Shacklebolt. "We need him there, but out of sight, not in the thick of fighting. Maybe you should go under a Polyjuice pill. We're still not strong enough, though. We need a powerful force to resist Voldemort. But what if Dumbledore was there? That would make Voldemort more cautious."

When the rest stared at Shacklebolt in disbelief, Snape elaborated. "Aberforth Dumbledore. He fooled us with the beard and spectacles. He could fool them. With all of us there to add power, they wouldn't know he wasn't Albus. I mean, seriously, isn't there a chance that the Dark Lord is afraid Dumbledore's still alive?"

Aberforth shrugged. "I suppose I could pass for Albie in dim light, but they get me in a corner and they'll know it ain't him 'cause I'm not as powerful as him. Might blow the whole operation."

"Who do we know that's really strong?" Snape asked. "Anyone."

"Wait a minute," Harry said. "What about a house-elf?"

"Nope. I'm not taking Kreacher. No way," said Moody.

"Not Kreacher. A free house-elf named Dobby. He works at Hogwarts. Aren't house-elves more powerful in some ways than wizards."

"In a lot of ways," Snape said, remembering his own magical test of strength against a house-elf. That particular house-elf, in fact. "If Dobby was there to shield Aberforth and cast his spells for him, that would definitely provide the illusion of great power that we want. Do you think he'd do it."

"Dobby 'd do anything for Harry," Ron exclaimed, the first words the others had heard from him since he arrived. "Dobby worships the ground Harry walks on."

"So," said Shacklebolt. "We have a strategy. Now we need the practical steps. Severus?"

"Getting into the Tower of London is easy. There's so much magic floating around London that no one will notice us apparating in. The problem is the chapel. We don't want any magic in or around the chapel until we're ready to take the wand, since at that moment we may have to move fast. I'd suggest a couple of us sneaking in during the day with a Yeoman Warder's tour, hiding there, and opening the doors for the rest of us after dark to let us in."

"Problem," said Moody. "They counted us on the way out."

"Two could sneak in at the same time as a tour if they had an invisibility cloak, and then hide," Snape replied. "No Confundus charms, though. No magic at all."

"What about the locks? Can you open it easily from inside once it's locked?"

"I don't know. I do know someone who can open locks without magic. I've watched him do it."

"Mundungus Fletcher?"

"George Weasley."

"George picks locks!" cried Molly as Arthur tried to calm her. "George breaks into buildings by picking locks! I'll have his hide, I will! I'll…"

"Now, now, Molly. It's a good thing that George has been expanding his talents," Arthur soothed. "Look at how valuable he's become to the wizarding world. He'll make us proud of him yet."

"Once we get inside," Moody said after Molly had quieted down, "everyone needs to know their place and role. We need to know where we're disapparating to and who has whose back. I suggest that I be the one who goes for the Horcrux."

"Why you?" interrupted Harry. "It's my job. Professor Dumbledore gave it to me."

"Two reasons, Harry. First, you're young and inexperienced in these things, and I'm not only old and experienced, I've got another advantage." He pointed elaborately at his blue eye. "I can see the traps better than you can. The other reason is that you're too valuable. We can't afford to lose you."

"I don't want to stand around being useless. Dumbledore chose me for this…"

"I must agree with Alastor," said Shacklebolt. "He's better qualified and more expendable. I'm not even sure you should be in the party, Harry."

"Is this being decided by fiat, or are we voting," Snape asked, "because personally I agree that it should be Harry."

"I knew you would… What do you mean Harry?" Moody exploded as Harry pumped a fist in the air and shouted "Yes!" "Look, Severus, no offense, but have you taken leave of your senses? This isn't a job for a boy."

"But he isn't a boy," Snape said. "He's legally an adult. Besides, he has two other very important arguments in his favor. First, Dumbledore wanted it to be him. Second, he's a Horcrux. At least we think he's a Horcrux. If the wand is booby trapped to kill the person who takes it, we can get rid of two Horcruxes at once with the other two still in our control. I would call that very efficient."

"That's a terrible thing to say!" Ginny shrieked. Luna tried to comfort her by explaining that it was only logical, but it didn't seem to help.

Harry was now eyeing Snape speculatively. "There's something else, isn't there?"

"Yes, there is, and it only just occurred to me. Maybe the ring wasn't the exception. Maybe the diary was the exception – not because it wasn't protected, but because it was destroyed by a Horcrux. If I recall from your story of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, young Riddle wasn't the slightest bit concerned about that diary being harmed. Maybe because it was protected and couldn't be harmed. Except the protections might not work against another Horcrux because they're in place to protect Horcruxes. The intent behind a spell can affect the manner in which it operates. Granted that the Dark Lord would never expect a Horcrux to destroy a Horcrux, yet the fact that the spell was meant to protect Horcruxes, not harm them, may have made it less effective against Harry than it might have been against another person."

"So you actually think it would be safer for Harry to get the wand," said Hermione. "That he would be in less danger than anyone else."

"Exactly. And if I'm wrong, we at least get the benefit of killing two birds with one stone."

"You've got no feeling heart in you, you haven't!" cried Molly, now completely distracted from her anger with George. "To talk about the poor boy like that in front of him."

Harry, on the other hand, seemed quite pleased with the idea. "Then maybe it is meant to be me," he mused. "Not because someone else tells me I have to do it, but because I really am the only one who can do it."

"I'm certainly not going to take the opportunity away from you," said Snape. "There are a lot of things I'm good at, but I've never known destroying Horcruxes to be one of them, and I have no desire to add it to my list of marketable skills. Honestly, though, I think that Harry is the best choice. And I think he's the safest."

A vote was taken and the matter resolved. Harry would go along and be the one to take the wand Horcrux, though it was also agreed that they wouldn't try to destroy it in the chapel. The possibility that they might damage St. Peter ad Vincula was a scenario that neither Snape nor Harry would accept. If they got the wand, they would try to take it somewhere safe to destroy it even if they had to fight their way past Voldemort and all his Death Eaters.

There was no point in wasting time. It was midnight, and Sunday had already started. They would go for the wand Sunday evening, in less than twenty-four hours time. McGonagall, Vance, and Lupin returned to Hogwarts with the students. Shacklebolt, Arthur, and Molly returned to their homes, as did the members of the Order, including Hagrid, who would return on the morrow. Harry was to bunk with Bill and Charlie Weasley. Snape and Moody were stuck with each other.

"I still think you're wrong about letting Harry go for the Horcrux," said Moody as the two prepared for bed. "He's too young; he hasn't got the experience."

"And I still think you're wrong," Snape answered. "And quite frankly, I'm not going to let your desire to argue the point interfere with my sleep. If you don't be quiet, I'm going to leave and get a room at the Kensington Hilton."

"Do they have nice rooms?"

"Shut up and go to sleep." Which, after a bit more grumbling from Moody, they did.

xxxxxxxxxx


	16. Chapter 16 – Facing Truths

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Facing Truths**

Moody left the next morning shortly before nine o'clock and returned at lunch time. "Where have you been?" Snape demanded, but Moody just smiled and said something about being prepared. He then shut himself up in one of the storerooms for two hours, looking very pleased when he came out. Snape could get nothing from him.

Harry had gone out as well, but he was gone only a short time and brought his invisibility cloak back. Later in the afternoon, George Weasley arrived, and he, Charlie, and Moody apparated to the Tower of London where Moody watched as the two brothers entered St. Peter ad Vincula on the heels of a Yeoman Warder's tour, concealed by Harry's cloak from everyone except Moody, who waited until he was sure they were securely hidden before apparating back to France.

At dinner time, the rest began apparating in. Hagrid brought Dobby with him from Hogwarts, and the little house-elf squealed and seized Harry around the knees, refusing to let go for about three minutes, until Harry had the presence of mind to ask him to help serve dinner, a task Dobby performed with joy.

Then there was the transformation of Aberforth Dumbledore. This was done in front of the whole group, primarily for Dobby's sake. They wanted the house-elf to fully understand that this was not Albus Dumbledore, and had been worried about Dobby's reaction if he saw Aberforth only in his disguise. Dobby practiced hiding between Dumbledore's robes and cloak, and casting shields and attack spells while remaining concealed.

Next came, for Snape, Moody, and Shacklebolt, who was there to help with the preparations and see them off, the first moment of true anxiety. Aberforth left the group to, as he phrased it, 'visit the necessary,' and returned a few minutes later to all appearances unchanged. It was, however, not Aberforth anymore. It was Albus.

They were concerned about Dobby. Snape couldn't forget his experience with the ghosts of Hogwarts, who'd recognized him instantly. He kept telling himself that the ghosts were different, being spirits themselves and therefore more attuned to the spirit of the person than to the flesh, whereas house-elves were no more spiritual than anyone else. It didn't help him be any less nervous.

Dobby, however, seemed not to be aware of the exchange. He was, admittedly, far more interested in the welfare of Harry Potter than he could ever be in the welfare of either Aberforth or Albus Dumbledore, and that may have had something to do with it. On the other hand, it might not have been within the powers of any house-elf to have noticed the difference.

It was as Russ that Snape apparated to the Tower of London around ten o'clock that night. The group came in around the fringes of the inner walls a distance from St. Peter ad Vincula, then crossed the open area on foot. When the band of witches and wizards reached the church, they found the door already unlocked and George and Charlie waiting for them.

Once inside, they used flashlights sparingly to find their way, careful not to let light be seen through the windows. Moody and Harry approached the altar in the Chapel Royal with Dumbledore and Dobby close behind. The rest took up stations scattered through the chapel so they could cover the whole space and have clear shots at anyone coming in.

Russ settled in a corner as far from the altar as he could get, hoping that the wand was not guarded with alarms and that the Dark Lord was not going to make an appearance.

From the other side of the chapel, Russ could hear the soft murmur of Moody's and Harry's voices.

"The line of enchantment runs right down here, between those two stones…"

"What if we take up the stone here on the right where there's no spell and go in from the side…"

"I can't tell how deep the spell goes. It could still set it off… Ready… Now!"

The bright glow of Moody's spell illumined the chapel, and the sound of tearing stone echoed between the columns. There was a moment of silence, then Harry's cry of "Got it!" and then a series of loud pops like machine gun fire as Death Eaters apparated in throughout the chapel. And then there was a shimmer of light and a hum that frightened Russ more than anything he could have imagined.

The chapel was sealed. The Dark Lord stood in the middle of St. Peter ad Vincula and he had sealed the chapel. None of them could apparate out.

Russ dove for the floor immediately, praying that no one had noticed him in his corner. A glance around revealed Bella Lestrange at her lord's back, but not Lucius, though he did see the Carrows, Urquhart, Bole, Montague, Stanley, and three who were unknown to him. Avery, Nott, and Goyle were also there. _Did Moody or Shacklebolt warn our people not to hit them?_

Death Eaters and members of the Order faced each other in a nervous standoff, scattered through the small building in such a way that none of them was in a good offensive or defensive position. Voldemort was the first to speak. "What you have is mine. You will give it to me."

"I think not, Tom," said a well-known voice, and Dumbledore stepped from the shadow of a column to an uneasy murmur from the Death Eaters. "Not unless you are prepared to present us with a bill of sale demonstrating…"

"You're dead," hissed Voldemort. "This is an attempt to deceive me."

"I assure you that I am very much alive, and more than ready to dispute…"

The bolt of red light that shot from Voldemort's wand was deflected by a shield that appeared suddenly in front of Dumbledore, and it dispersed in smaller rays that faded harmlessly in the gloom of the church.

"That was hardly polite, Tom."

"That is not my name!" Voldemort's wand remained pointed at Dumbledore, who held no wand himself.

"It is the name I shall always know you by, and so much more attractive than the other."

Voldemort's crimson gaze swept around the chapel. "Misfits and has-beens. Can you find no others to follow you?"

"These are quite adequate."

"Give me my property or they will be quite dead."

"You know I cannot do that, Tom."

"Then I shall take it!" A loud pop, and Voldemort was five feet to the left of his former position, partially screened by a column, and in a direct line of fire to Harry. The red bolt shot out, Harry dove to his right, Hagrid thundered forward in rage, and a burst of green from Dumbledore's direction collided with the red and showered the chapel in fiery sparks. The Order moved in to help its comrades, and Death Eaters blocked them.

Bella sized up the opposition at once and went for Moody, thus preventing him from helping Dumbledore. Harry scrambled to his feet and ran through an archway, twisting and sending off a stunning spell as soon as he had a shot at Voldemort. Near him Alecto had tried to disarm Tonks, and both now dueled with spells that struck blows like fists. A cutting curse aimed at Diggle was blocked by Jones, who hit Montague with a partial body bind, then took an impediment curse to the arm that put her out of the fight.

Russ stayed on the floor in his corner. He, the only healer there, was under orders to stay out of the fight, to avoid being seen by Voldemort, and he was more than happy to obey. He found himself, however, watching the others intensely. Avery, he noted, was being careful to aim a little high, and though he sent bolts of light around the chapel, he seemed never to hit anything. It took but a second to confirm that Nott and Goyle were doing the same.

Doge directed a shot at Goyle. _He doesn't know!_ Russ thought in panic, and from his hiding place aimed a shielding charm that kept Goyle safe. In the confusion, no one could tell where the shot had come from.

In the center of the chapel, Voldemort and Dumbledore engaged in a curious four-way duel as Voldemort tried to immobilize Harry, who held the case with the wand horcrux, and with Bella's assistance attack Dumbledore at the same time. Dobby was clearly more interested in protecting Harry than in fighting Voldemort, but Dumbledore himself was keeping Bella at bay and even forcing Voldemort to parry blows. The combination of wizard and hidden elf made Dumbledore appear dazzlingly powerful.

Then Amycus threw a blasting curse at the ceiling, and a massive block of stone crashed down on George and Charlie Weasley. There was no choice. The only magic strong enough was Dobby's, and he threw a shield over the Weasleys while Dumbledore shielded the house-elf. Voldemort wheeled against Harry. Tonks hit Bella in the back with a fist curse, and Moody cried, "Here, Harry!" Harry threw the wand case to him like an American quarterback passing a football.

Immediately Voldemort went for Moody, who parried a blast, stumbled, recovered and, with Voldemort closing in, tossed the case back to Harry.

"_Accio!"_ Voldemort screamed. The case came to his hand, the apparation barrier was removed, and Voldemort was gone. Behind him Death Eaters popped out of the chapel, following him back to headquarters.

"Quick!" Moody yelled. "Out! Everybody out before he discovers he has the wrong wand!"

Back in France there was celebration and rejoicing. Mead, wine, and firewhisky were passed around, and they drank several toasts to the success of the mission as Moody was made to recount over and over how he'd gone to the chapel, joined a Yeoman Warder's tour, and studied the wand case with his enchanted eye. Making the duplicate had taken time, but was otherwise not difficult, since it only had to deceive Voldemort for a moment under distracting circumstances.

"Did you know?" Snape asked Harry. The two of them had a mutual desire to stand a little outside the general party. Snape was watching Aberforth try to act as if he'd seen everything. Albus, more tired than he wanted to admit, had already returned to Troyes.

"Not really. He said at some time he'd signal me to throw the case, and not to worry whatever happened. I suppose it was good not to tell me, since Voldemort would have no trouble reading me. Did you know?"

"No. I think that was personal, though. He's always expected me to come up with the clever plans, you see. I bet he was thrilled when he came up with this one. By the way, you know we still have work to do. Back in the chapel."

"Won't he be there?"

"Not now. If he noticed the switch right away, then he went back right away. After that it would be pointless because we wouldn't be there. And he won't be waiting for you and me to come back now, since what we're going to do would never occur to him."

"What are we going to do?"

"Fix the chapel. And not with some wizard hocus-pocus that will disintegrate in twenty-five years. We're going to do it right. I'm going to send for Miss Granger. She'll be of great help."

Floo powder got McGonagall out of bed, and a few words of explanation brought a still-sleepy Hermione to France holding the pensieve from McGonagall's office. Snape ransacked the storerooms for plaster, cement, mortar, enamel, glaze, and anything else that seemed useful and assembled his little work party at about the same time that the other witches and wizards were heading for a well earned sleep, some in France and some to homes that would be fitted with extra protective spells after this night's work.

Snape, Harry, and Hermione, however, accompanied by a very excited Dobby, apparated directly back to the Chapel Royal in the Tower. No pure-blooded wizards accompanied them, for this was a task for the muggle born and the muggle raised, for those with an instinctive grasp of the years of devoted toil, the long labor of patient hands, that had now to be set right.

The chapel was as they had left it, disordered and broken. Snape walked up to the altar and stood for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "If it's any help, no one died. There were no deaths here this night."

They started with the quick, easy things – picking up the chairs and setting them back in their rows, cleaning scorch marks from the stonework, retrieving items that had fallen to the floor and replacing them – the last task was one reason Snape had wanted the pensieve. They could study how the chapel had been before the fight.

The two difficult jobs were repairing the ornate floor around the altar with its depictions of the coats of arms, and fixing the stone where Amycus had tried to crush George and Charlie. This could not be done simply with magic. Magic wouldn't last without constant renewal. They had to use cement and mortar to repair broken stone, to recolor and reglaze tile, to restain gouged wood.

Magic did help. It helped to sort and arrange the broken pieces, to lift and move them into place. It helped to provide the heat to fuse glass and dry plaster. It helped, especially Dobby's magic, to speed their task so that by eight the next morning, an hour before the Tower opened to the public, the job was done. All trace of the night's battle had been removed, and the repair work would last as long as the original stone.

Snape, Harry, and Hermione stood for a last moment looking around. It was perfect. They looked at each other, contented, and if Harry was contented, Dobby was contented. Then they took the supplies back to France, and from there apparated to outside Hogsmeade, from there to the Shrieking Shack, and from there they made their way, Snape once again Russ for a short time, to the sixth floor of the castle.

Part of the west corridor on the sixth floor had become a fort, a military bunker, a center of operations for the whole Order. It was now locked and sealed – ceiling, walls, and floor. It was impregnable to attack from without or destruction from within. Though decisions there might have serious repercussions, what happened in that corridor of Hogwarts castle could not be allowed to affect or harm the rest of the wizarding world.

The sixth floor of Hogwarts castle now housed three of the four remaining Horcruxes that had been, willing or unwilling, made by Lord Voldemort. There resided Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup (retrieved from the trophy room) and Ravenclaw's wand. Above the seventh floor, the Headmistress's Tower housed the fourth, the Gryffindor student known as Harry Potter. Something belonging to each founder.

For now a decision had to be taken regarding the destruction of the Horcruxes.

For the moment, however, the needs of the night workers had to be attended to. After a relaxed breakfast in McGonagall's office, Hermione was sent to the hospital wing to sleep, a ruse that would also explain her absence from classes that day. Snape was given temporary use of McGonagall's bedroom, and a bed was brought into her office for Harry, since neither Snape nor Harry could risk being seen in the corridors of Hogwarts.

By three in the afternoon, the Order was beginning to gather. McGonagall, with Shacklebolt's connivance, could open a temporary and unmonitored floo link to her own fireplace, and this was used to bring the members in. They went down to the sixth floor via a staircase that was now closed to student traffic.

Deciding what to do with the horcruxes turned out to be – not easy.

"Has," asked Snape for about the eighth time, "a soul fragment ever been removed from a Horcrux? If it's possible, we have one set of options. If it isn't possible we have another set of options. Does anybody have an answer? At least say 'no' if you don't."

"Now, now, Severus," said Shacklebolt, "you're getting entirely too worked up about this. We're operating within a range of possible eventualities, and the calculations on the likelihood of any of them…"

"Has. It. Ever. Been. Done!"

"Not that I'm aware of, no." Shacklebolt looked somewhat crestfallen at having to make this admission. "But I'm certain that if it's possible, Voldemort would be able to discover how. When all is said and done, he's the real expert on Horcruxes."

"So what we are looking at," said McGonagall with an air of calm that fooled no one, "is the probability that in order to destroy You-Know-Who, we must also destroy poor Harry. Sorry about that, Harry dear."

That, of course, in a nutshell, was the problem.

"Okay," said Snape. "We work on scenarios. Worst case scenario – Horcrux Harry Potter dies, but Voldemort can create more Horcruxes, so absolutely nothing is achieved. Can we prevent this scenario from occurring?"

"We've already covered that. We think the evidence shows he can't make any more," Moody said.

"I said it was a worst case scenario. Do you know the definition of a 'worst case' scenario?"

"If he could make more Horcruxes," said Shacklebolt, "then we'd be lost, so the worst-case scenario means defeat. But I don't think we have to worry about it. Harry tells us Voldemort himself believes that seven is the limiting number. This may be due primarily to the power of the number seven, but I ask you to remember that certain things don't happen if there's no will – no belief in the possible – behind them. Killing curses, luckily, don't happen without action of the will. I would assume that with something as delicate as the creation of a Horcrux, if Voldemort doesn't believe it can happen, then it can't."

Harry spoke up then, and the others listened respectfully. "Professor Dumbledore said, too, that putting so much of his soul into horcruxes was changing Voldemort. I saw what he looked like when he was young. He was really pretty handsome."

"He was indeed," said McGonagall, causing the others to look at her for a moment. She became quiet, and they looked again to Harry.

"Then, over the years, he changed. His face, his eyes, his hair, everything changed to something less human. The professor believed this was because he was putting more and more of his human self into the Horcruxes. He thought there was a limit to how much of yourself you can tear away before you cease to exist as a person, and Voldemort may be running into this limit."

Those around the table nodded in agreement, especially Snape who had seen the Dark Lord at close quarters.

"Finally," Shacklebolt finished sadly, "there is the evidence of Amelia Bones. We've already talked about her murder and the evidence that Voldemort's already tried to make another horcrux and failed."

"All right," Snape said, "I'll accept for the sake of argument that the worst-case scenario isn't something we have to worry about."

"Good," said Moody. "Now, assume that you're Voldemort. You already know that two of the six Horcruxes have been destroyed. Then you find out that three more have followed them, leaving you with the last of the six. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that this sixth one is Harry Potter. What do you do?"

Snape smiled. "I protect the life of Harry Potter with all the force at my command until such time as I discover a way to remove the soul fragment from him so that I can replace it in someone or something else. That raises another problem, though. We don't know if the Dark Lord has realized that Harry may be his missing Horcrux."

They discussed then their memories of the battle in the Chapel Royal.

"He didn't use an Unforgivable Curse," Charlie Weasley pointed out. "I know the fight wasn't very long, but none of them used a killing curse against Harry or against anyone. Could that be proof that he knows?"

"I wish that was true," Moody sighed, "but it's more likely they were worried about the wand."

"That's right," Harry added. "When Voldemort faced Dumbledore in the Ministry that time, the killing curses he used were destroying statues and things. I bet he remembered that and didn't want to chance a curse hitting the wand by accident."

"So we have to assume for the moment that Voldemort doesn't realize Harry's value." Shacklebolt drummed his fingers on the table. "I take it it's the consensus of this group that it's best if we can find a way to destroy the Horcruxes without harming Harry."

There was no dissent to this comment.

"I think," said Lupin calmly, "that there's an order to what we have to do. We want Voldemort to take the soul fragment out of Harry. He can't do that if he doesn't know that Harry's a Horcrux. So first, we have to find a way to show Voldemort that Harry holds the soul fragment. But if Voldemort should capture Harry before we can do that, we need something to bargain with. I suggest we wait before destroying the other Horcruxes until we're sure Voldemort knows about Harry."

Vance voiced another concern. "But what if Voldemort doesn't find a way to transfer the soul fragment? What if Harry remains the means by which Voldemort stays alive? What do we do then?"

"I wouldn't attempt to answer that question now," said Shacklebolt. "Let's wait until we're closer to that point."

In the end, the decision was to postpone action on the Horcruxes and appoint a committee whose task was to find a way to inform Voldemort about Harry in such a way that Voldemort would not suspect the information was planted.

This happy task fell to Moody, Harry and, of course, Snape, who knew Voldemort better than any of them.

After dinner a smaller group met in the sealed-off corridor on the sixth floor. This consisted of McGonagall, Harry, Snape, Moody, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. Moody brought the dagger. The other artifacts were in special cases on a shelf to one side.

Ron was fascinated. "To think," he said in wonder, " there's a little piece of You-Know-Who in each one of them. Wicked."

"Wicked, indeed, Mr. Weasley," sniffed McGonagall sternly. "Monstrously wicked."

"So," Harry said, looking at the dagger, "since it wasn't a Horcrux, what do we do with it?"

Snape shrugged. "You said you wanted it. You may have it if you like."

"I suppose," said Harry, "part of me already knew this would happen. Dumbledore said it might be the snake, Nagini, and at first I thought he had to be right, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense."

"Why didn't it make sense," Snape asked.

"Isn't the whole purpose to making a Horcrux so that you can live forever? That's what Voldemort wants – immortality. And Dumbledore said he could only make six. If I was going to make Horcruxes, I'd choose things I thought would last the longest time, like that pyramid Ron saw when he went to Egypt. It's been there a few thousand years, and it's going to be there a few thousand more. Or if I had to use a living thing, I take one of those four-thousand-year-old trees, or at least that tortoise that lives almost two hundred years. Do you know how long those big snakes live, Professor? I looked it up. About twenty-five years. What's the point in having a Horcrux that's going to die before you do?"

"Well put," Snape said. "I take it you've been thinking about this for a while."

"Yeah. It occurred to me last summer. It's funny, but Dumbledore told me nearly five years ago that Voldemort put part of himself in me, yet I didn't make the connection with Horcruxes, and I guess Dumbledore didn't either. It isn't a fun thing to think about."

"Can't you take the soul fragment out of Harry without hurting him?" Ron asked.

"We don't know," said Snape. "We're hoping the Dark Lord can work out a way to do it."

"Dad's going to love this," Luna giggled. "The Dark Lord is joining the fight against Voldemort." Snape gave her a look of exasperation, and Luna gasped. "You looked just like Russ right then."

"Earth to Luna – I am Russ."

"Yes, but you don't usually look or act alike."

"Excuse me!" Ron hollered. "We're talking about Harry here!"

"The key to the whole matter is that Voldemort know that Harry is a Horcrux," Snape said. "If he doesn't know, he might simply kill Harry. But if he knows, he'll try to keep Harry alive until he can get the soul fragment out. That's the really tricky part. Being there when it happens, when Harry is free and before Voldemort kills him."

"Couldn't Yaxley help?" asked Hermione. "That man that works for Mr. Moody. He escaped from Azkaban with those other Death Eaters, right? Maybe when Voldemort takes out the soul fragment, Yaxley can help him."

Snape smiled a little, trying to picture Yaxley in that role, then said to Hermione, "That's a good idea. We'll keep it in mind. My first question right now, though, would be how we can determine if the Dark Lord has guessed that Harry is a Horcrux."

Harry looked at Snape carefully. "I just thought. Isn't that why Voldemort gave orders last May that the Death Eaters weren't supposed to kill me?"

"I wish that were true, but I made that up to get them to leave you alone. There were no such orders."

"Oh."

"It's getting far too late," said McGonagall, "and the students should be in bed. So should the rest of us if we want to get anything done tomorrow. Severus, Alastor, Harry – we can't keep you on this floor. Too many students pass by the corridor. I want you more secluded, so we need to set up beds for you in my office. And the five of you," she raised her eyebrows at the students, "get along to your dormitories now."

They all went upstairs together since they were all going to the towers. On the seventh floor, Harry paused to say good night to his friends, and McGonagall took the opportunity to draw Snape and Moody to one side.

"Don't you think we've reached a point where we can tell Harry about Albus?" she asked them. "That would make discussion with Harry about the possibility of his being a Horcrux much easier."

"I will admit," said Moody slyly, "that the introduction of an undercover team of Death Eaters has made Severus here somewhat more expendable, since we now have potentially seven of 'our' people who know the secret to Voldemort's headquarters…"

"Thank you very much," Snape said acidly.

Then Harry rejoined them, four of the students went to Gryffindor, and Luna to Ravenclaw. Harry, Snape, and Moody followed McGonagall to her rooms. Beds and privacy curtains were whisked into the office and lined up in a row with the wave of a wand, after which McGonagall bid the three "Good night, gentlemen," as she retired to her own room.

Harry appeared uncomfortable, but Snape chose to ignore it. Looking around the room, he pointed to a far corner. "That's mine," he said, drawing his own wand and moving one bed and a set of curtains.

Moody grunted. "Why don't you take that other corner, Harry, and I'll stay here. D' you think the headmistress has a private bathroom in this place?"

As they settled in, Harry confided one thing. "I feel better now that everyone else knows. It's been bothering me, but being able to talk about it helps."

xxxxxxxxxx

_Tuesday, March 10, 1998_

Snape was awake and up first, well before dawn. He was neatly making the bed when a quiet voice spoke softly behind him.

"Why don't you use magic to do that?"

Snape straightened his back and turned to face Harry. "Old habits die hard. We did not use magic in our house when I was growing up. Every morning, I was required to make my bed before going down to breakfast."

"But your mum was a witch. Didn't she use magic in the kitchen like Mrs. Weasley?"

"No, she did not. She used magic nowhere in the house. And how did you know about my mother?"

"Hermione found a couple of things in the library, in old newspapers. How she was captain of the gobstones team, and when she married Mr. Snape, and when you were born."

"That's in the library? Is there no privacy in this world?"

"That's how I feel a lot of the time. People always staring. Funny how the three of us are alike."

"What three would that be, Potter?"

"Me, you, and Voldemort. All of us growing up without magic. He didn't even know he was a wizard until he was accepted to Hogwarts. Just like me."

"There the similarity ends. I knew I was a wizard, and I used magic. Just not in the house or anywhere my father could see. It made him uncomfortable."

"I guess so," said Harry, and Snape recalled suddenly that the boy had seen his father – in one of Snape's own memories during their less-than-successful occlumency lessons. It had certainly not been one of Snape's more pleasant memories.

"I want you to know," Snape said with studied and careful dignity, "that my father and I had a good relationship. He was the one who taught me cribbage."

"What's that?"

"The card game I play sometimes with Professor Flitwick."

"Oh, the one with the board and pegs." Harry paused, as if gathering courage. "Is it true that he… uh… you know, when you went back…"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Potter."

"Hermione said Mr. Moody told her that Voldemort… punished you… when you went back, and he described to her what happened one time when he was angry."

"Alastor Moody makes a habit of violating people's privacy."

"I'm sorry. It's just that I was thinking what might happen to me, and… that time he captured me, when Cedric died, he hit me with a Cruciatus curse… for just a few seconds. Twice. It was horrible."

"I know," said Snape.

"I was wondering…"

At that moment, Moody grunted, rolled over, and woke up. "You two are up and about early," he yawned.

"We are not 'up and about,'" replied Snape. "The truth of the matter is that we never got to sleep due to the decibel level of your nocturnal concert."

"Huh?"

"You snore." Harry giggled at this, and Snape winked at him. "You snore so loudly and so creatively, in fact," Snape continued, "that I am contemplating entering you in a hog-calling contest. And that is only because there is no such thing as a bull elephant-calling contest."

"I love you, too, boyo, and if that's all you can find to complain about today, then the whole lot of us are lucky." Moody strapped on his wooden leg and clambered out of bed. "When's breakfast?"

"Whenever Minerva sees fit to remember we're here. We're not to go down to the Great Hall, lest we be seen."

"Great. Breakfast at McGonagall's leisure. Is there no end to our woes?" Moody made the bed with a swish of his wand and stumped off to the bathroom.

When he was gone, Snape and Harry looked at each other, the distance between them finally bridged by the reality they now shared, the weight and fear of the Dark Lord's hand.

"We'll talk later," Snape said, and Harry nodded.

Nothing whatsoever was resolved that day by the task force of three. This was in great part because two-thirds of that committee (Snape and Moody) had information they would not share with the other third (Harry), specifically about Dumbledore and about the fact that a small group of Death Eaters was now working against Voldemort inside headquarters. Snape, on careful reflection, was glad that the whole Order had not been warned of the defection of Malfoy, Avery, and the others before going to the Chapel Royal. If Harry ended up having to confront the Dark Lord in order to remove the soul fragment, they certainly could not trust him with information that the Dark Lord could read about Lucius Malfoy. It was bad enough that he knew about Yaxley.

The two adults did decide to send a message asking the clandestine spy group if there was any way to ascertain Voldemort's current position on Harry Potter.

That evening, as all (or almost all) of Hogwarts gathered for supper, Harry and Russ walked together down the hill to the Hogsmeade gate. Russ was operating under a one-hour pill, not wanting to be Snape on the grounds, and at the same time not wanting to be Russ for too long. Under his robes he wore muggle clothing of Snape's size.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked as they prepared for side-by-side apparation.

"Salisbury," said Russ.

"Why there?"

"Death Eaters never go to Salisbury. It's just not 'in' with the Death Eater crowd. I can be myself there."

They apparated into an upper area of the cathedral where evensong had already begun. As the pure, clear voices of the choir rose within the nave, Snape and Harry paused for a moment to listen, then exited into the open grounds around the cathedral.

"Where are we going?" Harry said again.

"Little restaurant I know of. Opens at six. You'll like it."

Harry loved it. The fourteenth century building had a pub on the ground floor, a restaurant with huge blackened beams on the floor above, two resident ghosts, and the mummified hand of a whist player from the eighteenth century. Harry ordered beef, but Snape went for the house specialty – venison.

"It seems wrong," Harry said when the great plates of food arrived, "to be sitting here enjoying a meal like this when we're in the middle of fighting a war."

"Why?" Snape asked, his first forkful of meat already halfway to his mouth. "Isn't it the right to have meals like this in restaurants like this that we're fighting to preserve?"

"Well, I… I'm not sure. Is it?"

"Look around you. What do you see? I see two part-blood wizards eating in a muggle restaurant surrounded by muggle waiters and muggle patrons, and no one cares. When we walked in here, all they cared about was that we were human beings with an appetite and enough money to pay for the food and service. No bloodline ID required. Not relevant."

"I suppose if you put it that way…"

"Besides, research has shown that workers who have regular breaks produce more than workers who never get a break. So by not enjoying yourself from time to time, you're decreasing your efficiency."

Harry started to laugh. "Why didn't I ever notice this side of you before?"

"Maybe because you were distracted by the manacles and the whip."

"No, I'm serious," Harry said, and suddenly he was.

Snape was quiet, looking at Harry for a moment. Then he looked down at his plate. The boy deserved an answer. An answer that wasn't sarcastic or flippant. He was going into greater peril than Snape had ever faced in his life, and he deserved an answer.

"Because I hated the sight of you," Snape said softly, and in the suddenly heavy silence he looked up again into Harry's eyes, Lily's eyes, that widened in shock as Harry and Snape realized at the same time that Harry was reading him. For a few seconds Snape fought against his instinct to shut down, allowing Harry to summon images from the past, then he turned away as the doors closed and locked in self-defense.

"You loved her," Harry said.

"We were friends."

"Why are you afraid to say it?"

"It would be a lie. There's no such thing. It's just an empty word. It doesn't exist."

"Haven't you ever been in love?" Harry asked.

"Isn't that the subject of a few Gryffindor common room jokes?"

Harry grinned. "Yeah. A couple. I noticed that you didn't want to answer the question."

"Let me rephrase the question. Have I ever been emotionally dependent on another person – yes. Have I ever been physically attracted to another person – yes. Have I ever done what I could to try to ensure the happiness of another person – yes. Have I ever experienced an emotion so strong that it overwhelmed me and controlled my life – no."

"Really? That's not what I heard."

Both of them had resumed eating, but now Snape paused again. "I beg your pardon."

"What Hagrid told the others. Hermione told me. Something about an excursion to the top of the Astronomy Tower. I'd call that pretty overwhelming. I've never tried to kill myself."

"That was not love."

"No? What was it?"

Snape concentrated on trying to cut a piece of meat, the fork difficult to hold in his weak left hand. _You have to do this, Severus. He deserves an answer. You have to…_ "I believe the operative emotion there was guilt," he said at last. "You know what I'm talking about."

"The prophecy."

"I used it for purely selfish reasons. I gave it to Voldemort to stop my own punishment. I can only say in my defense that I didn't know it was about Lily. I am not confident, however, that that knowledge would have changed anything at that moment."

"You have to stand up to him. You have to be brave."

Only the presence of the other diners around them kept Snape's voice at a discreet level. "You arrogant little twit. You take a grand total of less than five minutes of punishment and you prattle to me about being brave!" he hissed. "When you had a wand in your hand and were free to move around! And had a place to run to! You haven't got a clue!"

Harry had grown very pale. "That's what you need to tell me about. How do I find the courage to stand up to that?"

"It isn't courage. Courage doesn't help at that point. Courage operates only when you have choices. When the choices have all been stripped away, what you need is endurance. Either that, or an incredibly agile mind and very careful planning."

"I take it you're a careful planner." There was the tiniest hint of disdain in Harry's voice.

"The most careful you will ever meet. That's why I'm still in a position to have this little chat with you."

"I prefer courage."

"Spoken like a true Gryffindor. But what happens to courage when strength fails? I've heard how you can resist Imperius curses, but that gets a lot harder to do when you've been deprived of sleep for a week. I know you know how the Longbottoms resisted the Cruciatus curse until they went insane, but that happened only because Bella Black was always a heavy-handed fool who let circumstances make her impatient. In the hands of the Dark Lord, madness is not an option."

"So what do I do? What do you do?" Harry whispered.

"I survive. I endure what I have to endure, and I give him what he wants."

"That's a coward's way out. I won't betray my friends."

"Don't get uppity with me, Potter. Your brainless reliance on testosterone can be irritating. What the Dark Lord wants is very often miles away from the truth. The trick is to discover what he wants, and to give him as much as possible of that, while giving away as little as possible of the actual truth."

"How do I learn how to do that?"

"I remember trying to teach you the first steps of it. It was, as I recall, a spectacular failure."

"So occlumency helps."

"I wouldn't be alive today without it. In order to withhold the truth, you have to be able to hide the truth. I am not sanguine about your chances. Even less after what you did a little while ago."

"What was that?"

"In addition to Parseltongue, you apparently acquired a talent for legilimency. A good legilimens is rarely a good occlumens. That is why the Dark Lord distrusts occlumency so much."

"I guess we have to go back to the occlumency lessons," Harry sighed.

"Why? Not only are you blessed with the lowest level of occlumens talent I have ever seen in a still-breathing human being, the circumstances have changed. What I was trying to teach you then will not help you now."

"Why not? And why try to teach it if it doesn't help?"

"You had a direct connection to the Dark Lord's mind, and he was trying, from a distance…" Snape stopped, his brows drawing together as he looked for a moment at Harry. "You still have that connection," he said at last. "It's the Dark Lord who's decided not to use it. I wonder if we can… Anyway, two years ago the Dark Lord was not trying to read you. He was trying to plant an idea in your head. I was trying to teach you to block it, a basic shutting down technique that would close the connection. It was beyond your capabilities. Weeks and weeks of work for no result."

"That was my fault," said Harry quietly. "I never did any of the exercises you told me to do."

"What? I mean, I knew you weren't putting your heart and soul into it, but nothing?"

"I wanted the dreams. I wanted to see what was behind that door, in those rooms. I didn't want to block it out. I was… curious."

"Stop. Stop right now. Don't say anything." Seeing what was coming, Snape signaled the waiter, paid the bill, and seized Harry's arm. "Get up. We're leaving."

Harry followed Snape down the stairs and out of the building into the chill night. He'd begun to talk again. "I welcomed those images, I encouraged them, and then when he showed me those pictures of Sirius…"

"Keep walking." Snape steered Harry back onto the wide open grounds that surrounded the cathedral, "we'll be apparating as soon as it's clear."

"I believed him. I knew where it was coming from, you told me what it was, but I believed him. I didn't wait to check it out. I went to the Ministry and forced Sirius to follow me…"

Snape glanced hurriedly around, saw that no one was close or watching, put his arm around Harry's shoulders and apparated back to Hogsmeade.

They ended up on the Quidditch pitch under the light of a moon waxing nearly to full, Snape having taken Harry's wand as soon as they arrived in Hogsmeade to prevent the boy from doing himself an injury.

"You could have worked harder!" Harry yelled. "You could have forced me to learn!"

"What was I supposed to do, sit by your side every night in Gryffindor house holding your hand while you slept?"

"You could have told me the dreams were a trap!"

"You didn't tell me what they were."

"You should have looked into my head and seen them!" Harry charged, trying to tackle Snape, who rotated out of the way and used Harry's forward momentum to propel him onto the grass. The boy was back on his feet in an instant. They were of the same height and build, though the more athletic Harry was stronger. It was a little like fighting James, except now Snape had more defensive moves. They'd been having a running battle for nearly an hour. "You should have told me he was all right! You should have stopped me from going!"

"You were with Umbridge."

"You should have made him stay away, stay back! You shouldn't have let him go!"

"Me? Tell Sirius Black what to do?"

Harry charged again, trying to grab Snape's clothing and pull him to the ground. Snape deftly threw him again. Both were beginning to tire.

"You should have gone to the Ministry to help!"

"It would have blown my cover. I had to follow orders."

"You hated him! You wanted him to die!" Harry charged again, and this time Snape was a fraction of a second too slow. They fell together and rolled on the grass, Harry starting to punch and kick in a blind fury. "You killed him!" he screamed. "You killed him! You killed him!"

Then, suddenly, it was over. Harry went limp, and as Snape struggled to a sitting position, Harry buried his face against Snape's shoulder and began to cry. "I killed him," he sobbed, his body heaving with misery. "I killed him. I killed him." Snape said nothing, but began to rock gently back and forth, cradling Harry as Hagrid had cradled him so many years before.

It was Lupin, wandering restless in the night as the growing moon called to him, who found them huddled on the grass of the Quidditch field.

"Harry! Severus, is he all right?" Lupin knelt next to them, trying to comfort the still crying boy.

"I think he will be. We have had a revelation. It had to do with Sirius"

Lupin nodded in understanding. "We'd better get him up to McGonagall's office. Do you think he needs Madame Pomfrey?"

"He doesn't, but I might. I'm getting too old to be a punching bag."

"Come on, Harry, on your feet," Lupin said, keeping a firm and practical tone in his voice. "Can't stay out here all night." With Harry up and standing, Lupin held out an arm to Snape and pulled him up too. The sling had torn away in the struggle, and Snape's left arm hung loose. Lupin helped Snape adjust the sling, then guided both his charges toward the castle.

Only as they started up the stairs did Snape remember that he hadn't taken another Polyjuice pill. _Great. All I need now to put a cap on a marvelous evening is to have Slughorn or Trelawney see me._

The stairs seemed endless, and both Harry and Snape were exhausted, physically and emotionally. It took all Lupin's patience and firmness to goad them up another step, and another, until they reached the seventh floor.

"Good heavens!" McGonagall cried when she saw them. "What happened to you? Remus, are they all right? We were wondering where the two of you were."

Harry said nothing, but went directly to the corner where his bed was and lay down, facing the wall, his knees drawn up to his stomach.

"Don't fret," Lupin told McGonagall. "He'll be fine. He's coming to terms with some personal issues." He turned to Snape. "It's you I'm worried about. How could you let him tackle you like that, and you with only one good arm? Are you developing bruises?"

"I'll be fine, Remus."

"Don't be a silly goose," said McGonagall. "I'm sending for Pomfrey."

Madame Pomfrey examined Snape as he sat on the bed behind the privacy screen. "Nothing serious," she said, healing the incipient bruising, "but you really ought to be more careful. You're getting too old…"

"I know," said Snape.

Pomfrey left, and McGonagall, Lupin, and Snape sat in front of the fire, Snape with a blanket wrapped around him, trying to get warm again. Moody went over to where Harry lay on the bed in the other corner.

"Come on, lad, get up. Enough moping. Come get warm by the fire and have a glass of firewhisky."

"Go away. You don't understand."

"Sure I do. You've just realized something we've all known for nigh two years. I'll bet you've known it all along, too, you just never wanted to look at it straight."

"I killed Sirius."

"Wrong. You didn't kill anybody. What I'm talking about is that poor Severus over there never killed Sirius, and you owe him an apology. No, lad, Bella Lestrange killed Sirius, and I'm not going to let you diminish her responsibility by trying to take it onto yourself."

Harry rolled over and glared at Moody. "I paid attention to Voldemort's visions. I went to the Department of Mysteries when I didn't have to, and I made Sirius follow me there to protect me. If I hadn't done those things, Sirius wouldn't have died."

"True enough, and you are guilty of major errors of judgment. You can wallow in that all you want. But don't wallow in more than is your due, because we still have a lot of work to get done. Now come over by the fire and join us."

Harry swung his legs over the side of the bed, got up, and followed Moody to the fire. For a moment he looked at Snape, embarrassed, then ducked his head and said "I'm sorry" in a low voice. A little more strongly he added, "I hope I didn't hurt you."

"I'll be fine," Snape said. "Sit down and have some mead."

McGonagall had sent word to Harry's friends that Harry and Snape were back, but it was too late for a meeting, and in any case Harry and Snape were too tired. The five of them sat around the fire, talking quietly for a while or just being still. Then McGonagall and Lupin went to their own rooms, and Snape, Moody, and Harry went to bed as well.

xxxxxxxxxx


	17. Chapter 17 – Baiting the Trap

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Baiting the Trap**

_Wednesday, March 11, 1998_

The next morning Moody received a message by owl and left, saying he had to see a colleague on business. It left Snape puzzling about how many other contacts Moody was working with, and how many left hands had no clue what all the right hands were doing. Which brought him back to a long-standing question about Harry. Only this time Snape felt as if he could actually ask Harry the question.

"What have you been doing during the past several months? We might have to coordinate the activities of several groups of people."

"Not as much as you. I had this idea, last June, that I was going to be able to finish what Professor Dumbledore started, find and destroy the Horcruxes, kill Voldemort, kill you… but it's not as easy as it looks. There were days, weeks, when I felt like I had no energy. I couldn't even move. I just wanted to sleep."

"Depression. It happened to me when my parents died."

"Your parents?" Harry shook his head. "It's funny, but somehow I never think of people like you and Professor McGonagall as having parents. You just always were."

"Me and McGonagall?" Snape glanced around, then whispered conspiratorially, "Never, never let her know I mentioned this, but Professor McGonagall is almost – almost – old enough to be my grandmother. She was teaching before I was born. She's older than the Dark Lord and remembers him from school."

Harry's eyes grew wide in amusement as Snape spoke. "Who else here remembers Voldemort from school, when he was still Tom Riddle?"

"I'm not sure. McGonagall, Hagrid, Slughorn, Binns – I don't know if Flitwick had started teaching. Not Filch, he wasn't here yet… Several of the older people in Hogsmeade… Oh, and the ghosts. Especially the Baron. He doesn't say much, but he knows all the Slytherin students."

"I could have come back to school and started my investigation here, couldn't I? You have no idea how depressed I got when I found out that Moody's nephew was you, and I couldn't kill you."

It was a sobering thought. "You were depressed because you couldn't kill me?"

"I wanted you to pay for what you did. I still want you to pay, but in a different way. Back then I wanted you dead, and I wanted you to know I was the one who killed you. I had plans, fantasies I guess, of what I would do when we came face to face. And then we came face to face – I had you right there in front of me – and I couldn't do it. Then I started to think 'That's what's going to happen when I get to Voldemort. We'll be face to face, and I won't be able to kill him either.' I was certain that everything Professor Dumbledore did would be for nothing because I was a coward."

Snape stared at Harry for a moment, until Harry looked over at him. Then Snape recited slowly, "Either must die at the hand of the other… You know, the prophecy doesn't exactly say that you're supposed to kill him."

Harry was paying careful attention now, watching intensely as Snape rose and began to pace McGonagall's office, talking as he moved.

"The prophecy has been bothering me for some time. The phrase 'neither can live while the other survives' for example. Both of you have been surviving for the past two, almost three years, with no problem, and if you really are a Horcrux, he'll want you to continue to survive because that's the only way he'll survive. So either the prophecy is not a prophecy – just words that we're treating like a prophecy – or a major part of the puzzle still hasn't been found and put into place."

"I don't see how he can die at my hand if I don't kill him."

"Neither do I at the moment, but if a prophecy is ambiguous that's a warning to proceed with caution. There was an ancient king who consulted an oracle about starting a war against a powerful neighboring country. He was told that if he fought, a mighty kingdom would fall. He thought this was a signal to go ahead, only to learn in the end that the mighty kingdom was his own."

"But how can we plan if we don't know what the prophecy means? If I do get to face Voldemort, am I even supposed to try to kill him?"

"Harry, none of us knows. There's a famous religious work that prophesies cataclysmic destruction. It's hard to interpret because it uses mysterious images of beasts and mystical numbers. Even the followers of the religion can't agree on it's importance. Most of them say it's not really a prophecy, just a text dating from a time of persecution that happens to contain powerful and meaningful metaphors. Some others insist it's a literal prediction of the end of the world. Others say it was a real prophecy, but that it was fulfilled hundreds of years ago when an empire fell."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"Maybe your prophecy has already been fulfilled. You vanquished him as a baby. You deflected his curse and destroyed him. Maybe you did what you had to do more than sixteen years ago, and all that's left is for us to fight the Dark Lord any way we can."

Harry let out a deep breath. "You mean I might not be the Chosen One? Maybe I'm 'just Harry' after all?" Then he frowned again. "'Just Harry' who's a Horcrux. Great. My enemy wants to keep me alive, and my friends have to kill me."

"Not necessarily. Harry, who knows about the prophecy besides us? Professor Dumbledore told you, and you told me. Who else?"

"Nobody, I think. I mean, there's all this 'Chosen One' business, and lots of people think I'm destined to be the one to get rid of Voldemort, but the exact words of the prophecy – I think it's just us. Why? Do you have an idea?"

"I'm the careful planner, remember? There's one person we know of who puts great store in this prophecy, and believes it foretells the future. He just doesn't know the whole thing."

"Voldemort!"

"Right. The Dark Lord doesn't know that the prophecy implies that one of you has to kill the other. I mean, up until now he's wanted to kill you out of revenge for what happened and because he knows the part of the prophecy that says you have the power to vanquish him, but he doesn't know the part about not surviving if you live."

"I don't see how this is going to help me."

"The Dark Lord doesn't know it, but he's facing a paradox. If you're his last remaining Horcrux, he has to keep you alive. If he wants to survive according to the prophecy, he has to kill you."

"So what you said before! That you hoped Voldemort would find a way to take the soul fragment out! You really meant that!"

"Unfortunately, Harry, it only works if the Dark Lord a) realizes you're a Horcrux, and b) learns the whole prophecy. Otherwise, he's just going to kill you."

"You know, you're not exactly making me feel better. How are we going to do this?"

"Yesterday in the restaurant it occurred to me that you still have a link to the Dark Lord. Your minds touch. He must have been worried after the disaster at the Department of Mysteries that Dumbledore would try to use the link the other way, against him, because he's blocked the contact… He has blocked the contact, hasn't he? You don't still get visions?

"No. No visions."

"Good. Because if we can reopen the contact, we can feed him information."

"I thought you said I was the worst occlumens you ever met."

"You are. But that was locking down and hiding, blocking his entrance into your head. You're not good at hiding anything. You wear your mind on your sleeve. But there are other occlumency tricks where you work on showing things, not hiding them."

"You mean you want someone to see inside your head?"

"Certainly. I've done it a lot. I have lots of images of McGonagall – how she looks down her nose at me with that supercilious sneer, and how she lectures me in front of students, and how she gloats when Gryffindor beats Slytherin, and the irritating sound she makes when she slurps her soup… The Dark Lord loves looking at those so much that he forgets to check for the images that show how friendly we can be."

Harry was laughing now. "Do you think I could learn how to do that? Overload Voldemort with what I want him to see so that he never gets to what I want to hide?"

"I don't know, but I think it would be easier for you than the blocking. Then we'd have to find some way to reopen the connection so that the Dark Lord thinks he's doing it, not us. Then feed him what we want him to know."

A sound from the door stopped them, and they moved apart as McGonagall entered with Moody right behind her. Moody had a worried look.

"Severus, I need to talk to you. Something's come up. Minerva, is there a place where Severus and I can speak privately?"

"Right here, Alastor," McGonagall began, then looked at Harry. "Maybe not. Look, that little door there. There's a stair up to the bedroom. If you keep going up, it leads to a little observation area. It's small, and it will be cold, but it's private."

They climbed the stairs to the tiny room whose windows looked out at the Quidditch pitch, the lake, and the forest. Snape turned to Moody. "What's wrong?"

"I just got finished talking to Yaxley. They're all fine except for Malfoy. It seems Voldemort hasn't forgiven him and is riding him hard. Voldemort wants Draco and Narcissa, and it's lucky Lucius doesn't know where they are because he's been interrogated. Several times. Now Voldemort's put him under Bella's authority, and she's making him suffer for having been her rival all those months. He's getting real ragged, and Yaxley's afraid he's going to crack under the strain."

It was a terrible piece of news because if Lucius broke, then everything that had been started at, or was planned for headquarters was in jeopardy. It should have been anticipated, but it wasn't. Neither Moody nor Snape had a plan ready to hand, and both agreed to give the problem top priority.

The rest of the day until supper passed in an atmosphere of calm anxiety. Neither Snape nor Harry mentioned their conversation to any of the others. Their thoughts on the prophecy were something they shared with no one else, and both were wary of bringing anyone new into the secret. They were both trying to come up with new places to hold occlumency lessons.

Just before supper, McGonagall conveyed an invitation to Snape. It was from Hagrid. He'd heard Snape was on the grounds and wanted him to come down to the hut for a meal and a chat. Snape didn't want to take a polyjuice pill and, since McGonagall offered to run interference for him, he didn't have to.

Waiting until the whole school was in the Great Hall for supper, Snape and McGonagall crept down the stairs, Snape wrapped in a hooded cloak that concealed his entire form. He slipped out the oaken front doors as she marched in to supper, and he hurried down the hill to Hagrid's without being seen.

"Are you sure you're eating right?" Hagrid asked for the fourth time as he pressed more 'kitchen food' on Snape. He'd apparently decided not to cook the meal himself, knowing from long experience that his guest had a finicky stomach. "You're looking mighty thin, and peaked into the bargain."

"I swear you say that every time you see me," Snape replied, but he accepted the food and tried to eat with a good appetite for Hagrid's sake. It was a measure of the length and depth of their relationship that Snape was able to ask Hagrid the question that burned him, that had been burning him for a long time. "Hagrid, do you believe there is such a thing as love?"

"Now, lad, that's a question you should've been asking me twenty years ago. You got a lady friend?" Hagrid was taking a kettle off the fire, so Snape couldn't see his face.

The image of Phina Vaughn flickered through Snape's mind. "No, no lady friend. Not now."

Hagrid turned, the kettle in his mittened hands, grinning from ear to ear. "Not now, eh? That mean there was one at some time in the past? That'd be a good piece of news, that would."

Snape grimaced slightly. "There was… someone. I don't know that I'd call it love. She's dead now."

"Oh, sorry. What'd you ask about love for then?"

"Harry Potter," Snape replied. "Dumbledore seems to have told him that the weapon he'll use against the Dark Lord is love. I have trouble accepting that since the whole love thing seems dodgy to me." Since he wasn't looking at Hagrid as he said this, Snape didn't see how Hagrid's expression cycled through alarm to comprehension to sympathy in a matter of seconds.

"What d' you find dodgy about love?" Hagrid asked.

"It has so many meanings that it's meaningless. People say they love chocolate with more fervor than they say they love their parents. It's used as a synonym for jealousy, manipulation, affection, possessiveness, dependence, sadism, tenderness, friendship… No one can tell me how the emotion of love is distinct from any of these other feelings."

"Well there's yer problem in a nutshell, lad. Love ain't an emotion. It's the sum at the end of an addition problem."

"What?" Snape said, looking up now and staring at Hagrid – perplexed, but with the glimmer of dawning enlightenment on the horizon.

"Well, look now. Let's say ya have a lady friend and ya feel something, well, physical for her. Now that ain't nothing but biology. And ya might feel tenderness for a baby. Or be willing t' sacrifice yer life to an idea. Or just today there might be one place ya want t' be and nothing else will satisfy ya. Well, each one of these things is a good thing, but by itself it's just itself. Now, say there was one lady, and ya felt all of this – it's physical, it's tender, ya'd sacrifice yerself, there's no place else ya'd rather be – the more you add, the more it's love."

"What about the jealousy, manipulation, and sadism?"

"I remember, a long time ago, a certain young man asking me why ya feel bad when yer friend has another friend. Not all jealousy is a bad thing. The key is whether it hurts the other person or not. Now that sadism thing, that hurts the other person. That ain't part of love. But jealousy by itself don't hurt no one but the person who feels it. So it's sometimes part. Ya got to want the other person to be happy, but after that, the more different ways ya feel the more ya love."

The conversation shifted to other things, mostly because Snape shifted it. Hagrid, with the instinctive understanding of magical creatures that Dumbledore had always prized in him, let it shift. But that evening, when Snape slipped back into McGonagall's office and into bed, he had a lot more to think about than he'd had when he went out.

Wanting to stay away from more dangerous waters, Snape started first with Phina. It hurt to remember she was dead, and he noted that as the first item in his own private mathematical equation. Then there had been physical attraction, more than that even, physical need. Here his own mind began trying to shut down, and he battled the instinct. _Why did it never bother me before that the occlumency makes me want to hide things from myself?_

The addition problem kept growing. He'd enjoyed her company, thought about her when she wasn't present, wanted to share his own life and interests with her. Had he wanted to share her interests? He couldn't remember. He'd respected her ideas and her skills, tried to protect her, and would have been devastated by her death had not the occlumency kicked in to shield him.

Having made his mental list, Snape stepped back, figuratively speaking of course, to examine it. Was it enough to add up to love? He didn't know. He didn't know the minimum score required for it to be love.

_There's yer problem in a nutshell, lad._ Hagrid's voice echoed in Snape's mind. _Do ya think people like Harry make addition problems in their heads t' find out if they love someone?_

Suddenly Snape was remembering Mylor and Brendon. They'd had their problems, misunderstandings, infidelities, and yet in the end there was that knowledge that there was no one else they would rather grow old with than each other. That was a warm thing, a calm and gentle thing, so different from the fierce passion of Narcissa, who would defy her sister and stand up to the Dark Lord himself in defense of husband and son.

Which led Snape inexorably to Sirius – childless, but no less a father for that – walking open-eyed like Regulus into the Dark Lord's trap because he loved someone else better than he loved himself. Like Lily. No, Severus, be honest. Like James and Lily.

He needed to move, to pace, but he dared not wake Moody or Harry, sleeping in the far corners of the office. Slowly, carefully, Snape slipped out of bed and threw his cloak around his shoulders, crossing the floor stealthily to the staircase that led up to the observation room.

_What's wrong with me? Why is this so simple for everyone else and so impossible for me? Is it something you're either born with or not born with, like the occlumency? Is it the occlumency?_ Snape forced himself to think of himself, not as a man of thirty-eight but as a boy of eleven. So withdrawn, so self-contained, so cold. Sirius saw Harry as the child he'd never had. Did Dumbledore see Snape in the same way? Was that why he'd worked so hard to crack that impenetrable shell and release the child within? If it hadn't been for Dumbledore and Hagrid, would he, Snape, have been as heartless as the Dark Lord?

That thought could not bear looking at, and Snape locked it away, shutting down now and sealing the whole question of love behind the doors at the bottom of his mind. The night's meditations had, however, left him with a clearer vision of what was necessary.

In a battle with an implacable enemy, you use your best weapons. If the skirmish requires occlumency, you don't send Harry in. It would be like handing a soldier a gun and denying him ammunition. Equally, if the battle was to be won be love, certainly a power that the Dark Lord had no knowledge of, then you couldn't send in Snape. He might recognize the weapon, but he would never be able to wield it.

_It may be that Dumbledore is right about this after all. When we reach the final moment, this may be Harry's battle, and Harry's alone._

The next morning Snape was up very early, an easy thing since he hadn't been asleep at all during the night. He woke Moody to tell him that he'd be back in a couple of hours, then masked by cloak and hood slipped from the castle to the Willow and out through the Shack. True to his word, he was back two hours later and made his way to the Headmistress's office while the school breakfasted. What he brought was permission from Dumbledore to try contacting Voldemort through Harry, to feed him the entire prophecy, and to ensure he was aware that Harry was his missing sixth Horcrux.

At midmorning, Snape and Harry escaped from Moody and found a place to practice. It was luckily on the same floor – the Room of Requirement – and they had been sly. They'd asked for a place where they could work hidden from the rest of the school, thereby guaranteeing that no one else would be able to disturb them.

"Just try to relax and think of the Dark Lord's mind," Snape coaxed.

"I don't know what Voldemort's mind is like."

"Of course you do. He touched you many times. You must have picked up something."

"Well I'm sorry, but I didn't! He didn't leave calling cards when he came knocking!"

"A surface scan wouldn't give you much, but to put those images in your head he'd have had to go deeper."

"And I suppose you've had close enough contact to know…" Harry stopped as Snape turned away to hide the expression on his face. "How many times?" Harry whispered.

"Three," Snape replied.

"What were they like?" Harry asked. "Bad?"

"Not the first one. It wasn't pleasant, but it wasn't bad. It was part of the initiation. He scanned everyone to see how open and loyal we were. I realized later it also gave him something to compare later scans to, to see if someone changed. That's when I discovered he couldn't read me."

"You tried to hide something from him?"

"I didn't try. It just happened. I didn't even realize it had happened until later. I didn't show him Hagrid, or your mother, or a few other things. It scared me that I'd hidden them, but so far he hasn't found out. The second time was worse. His spy in Dumbledore's camp – I know now that it was Pettigrew, but I didn't know then – told him Dumbledore had a spy at our headquarters. Everyone was scanned. What really made it hard was that I was the spy."

Harry let his breath escape in a low whistle. "What did you do?"

"Luckily he didn't suspect it was me. I wasn't in operations. I brewed potions, invented some spells, and taught a self-defense class. It didn't occur to him that the Death Eaters in my class would talk about upcoming assignments."

"Self-defense! That's how you were able to toss me all over the Quidditch field Saturday night. Where'd you learn that?"

"I needed it at school. I got picked on a lot." Snape ignored the flush of embarrassment that rose in Harry's face. "If the Dark Lord had suspected me, I wouldn't have made it. I had to hide what I did for Dumbledore, show what I did for the Dark Lord, and show what I'd shown and hide what I'd hidden during the first scan, all the while shielding the knowledge that I was the one he was looking for. It was one of the most exhausting things I've ever been through."

"What about the third time?"

"That was the time he returned. When you fought him and Cedric Diggory died."

"That's where Dumbledore sent you! What happened?"

"I thought I'd prepared everything – why I'd stayed at Hogwarts, the information I'd gathered, my attitude toward muggle-born students and toward Dumbledore, why I was late answering his summons… Then, after I got there, when I was kneeling in front of him, I found out Barty Crouch had told him of the occlumency."

"Was that bad?"

"He was furious. He hated the idea that anyone would try to control what he could or couldn't see. I had to convince him it was involuntary. An instinctive defense against Dumbledore that I had no conscious control over."

"How did you do that?"

"I had to let him break through. Selective application of pain. Macnair did the honors – enjoyed it, too. It was decidedly… unpleasant."

"Show me what it was like."

Snape scowled at Harry. "It isn't bad enough I had to endure the violation of my own mind, now I have to let you watch?"

Harry stared back in defiance. "I have to reach out to Voldemort's mind. I have to know what his mind's like. You can show me."

They sat across from each other at a small table, and Snape explained to Harry how to engage the legilimency that Harry'd received from the Dark Lord's touch. "Every time you get an image, try to find something in it that will lead to the next image and draw it forth. If you start going in the wrong direction, go back to a previous image."

"Why can't you just show me?"

"My mind tends to shut down of its own accord. I'll have enough to do trying to keep it open. Besides, if you have a better feel for what the legilimens is doing, it will help you misdirect him. And please remember, you're trying to find out about the Dark Lord's mind, not mine. It wasn't an enjoyable experience, and I prefer not having to relive the whole thing just to satisfy your voyeurism."

In the end they did relive the whole experience, for it was nearly impossible, once started, for Snape to close down to Lily's green eyes. When it was over he remained seated, hands clenched on the table, head down, eyes closed, trembling and sick to his stomach the way he'd been that night.

Harry pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room to look out the window at Hagrid's hut. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had no idea." He clenched his hands, too, though with anger rather than pain. "Evil. Evil. We have to destroy him. That he could do that, and enjoy it." Harry turned back towards Snape. "He was laughing. He was feeding on you, on your pain. He was enjoying it. He is altogether evil, and I'm going to destroy him."

Snape didn't reply, so Harry went back to the table and sat facing him again. "Are you going to be all right?" Snape nodded. "You know," Harry went on, "I did know about Voldemort's mind. I did pick up lots of things. Sometimes, when I was looking at Dumbledore, I'd get these terrible feelings of rage and hatred, like I wanted to kill him. That was Voldemort coming through, wasn't it."

"Undoubtedly," Snape said.

"Tell me what to do."

"We have two messages we want to communicate. The first is that when he tried to kill you, he created a Horcrux. So you have to contact him and get him to think of that time. Do you remember anything about it? You were very young."

"I've always had a memory of the green light. That's my earliest memory. But that year the dementors were at Hogwarts – that brought back something else. I could remember my mother screaming and Voldemort talking to her."

It was not something Snape wanted to hear, Lily's last moments, but it had to be done. "What did he say to her?"

"He said, 'Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…' She kept screaming, 'Not Harry, kill me instead.'"

"Stand aside? He told her to get out of the way? That doesn't sound like the Dark Lord."

"It's what I heard. It's what the dementors pulled out of my head. When he tried to take the Philosopher's Stone he told me she needn't have died, but she was trying to protect me. That's why Quirrell couldn't touch me without getting burned. Professor Dumbledore said her love for me left me with a kind of protection on my skin."

"Did the Dark Lord touch you after he was reborn?"

Quickly Harry told the story of how Wormtail had killed Cedric, and taken Harry's blood for the potion that brought Voldemort back, and how the shapes of the last spells had come from Voldemort's wand when their twin wands had connected.

"Wait a minute," Snape said. "The wand that was used to kill Bertha Jorkins and Cedric Diggory is the same wand that killed both your parents?"

"Yes, but…"

"How did he get it? A non-corporeal being can't carry a wand. Quirrell didn't have it. And why did Pettigrew use the Dark Lord's wand to kill Diggory instead of his own? Unless Pettigrew was there that night at Godric's Hollow, and when the Dark Lord vanished, took his wand and hid it somewhere. He'd have to hide it, since he was planning his own 'murder' – would he be able to take the wand with him as a rat?" Snape realized he was thinking out loud, and that Harry was puzzled. "Did Pettigrew have his own wand when he brought the Dark Lord back?"

"Yes, he used it to remove some bone from the tomb. Voldemort's wand was in his robes. He took it out of a pocket after he was revived. So Wormtail must've killed Cedric, then put the wand back into the robes."

"Curiouser and curiouser. Whose death was the Dark Lord planning to use to make his last Horcrux, yours or James's? If James's, I can see his not wanting Lily's additional death to interfere, but then why kill you before the Horcrux was made? If yours, again he wouldn't want the extra death to interfere with the Horcrux, but then why kill James? Unless Cedric wasn't the first person killed by someone else with the Dark Lord's wand."

"Do you think Wormtail killed my father with Voldemort's wand?"

"I don't know. This is all speculation right now. Worse than speculation – fantasizing. We have no way to verify the speculations."

"Dumbledore said it was an ancient magic that made my mother's love protect me."

"A magic that might have been made even stronger if hers was the death that made you a Horcrux. It means that part of her is inside you, too, not just part of the Dark Lord. If this is indeed ancient magic, it must be very powerful."

"Why would Wormtail use Voldemort's wand to kill anybody?"

"The killing curse requires a powerful wizard or a powerful will. Maybe Pettigrew by himself with his own wand just wasn't strong enough. So he uses the Dark Lord's wand, which would certainly be stronger. But what this means is that we know for certain which wand killed your parents, Jorkins, and Diggory, but we don't know for certain who was wielding it at the time. Well, in the case of Diggory we know because you witnessed it, but not in the case of the others."

"This is getting so complicated," Harry sighed. "Do you think we'll ever know the answers to all the questions?"

"I doubt it," said Snape.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Tuesday, March 17, 1998_

It was nearly a week later, and Harry had been practicing two things very diligently. The first was the transfer of his images from the night his parents died and of the prophecy. The second was an occlumency trick in which the occlumens allowed an image to surface as if uncontrolled, then presented a preplanned cycle of images in such a way that they appeared to be generated by panic rather than by design. The best thing about this one was that it could be rehearsed in advance to the point where the sequence of images was nearly automatic.

At five o'clock in the morning, Snape, Harry, Moody, McGonagall, and Lupin were in the Shrieking Shack, outside the perimeter of defenses. For the past four mornings, Harry had been slipping into a semi-tranced state and reaching out for Voldemort's mind. The first morning had been fruitless, but the second had brought a glimmer of contact that Snape had immediately pulled Harry away from.

"Let him seek it out," Snape told Harry. "We value more what we work to get."

The third morning Voldemort had been there waiting, and again contact was immediately broken off. The fourth morning he'd tried to hold Harry's mind in touch with his own, and pulling Harry away had been harder. This fifth morning, Moody was in charge rather than Snape. They had argued about it.

"You do not know occlumency, and you do not know the Dark Lord's mind. The slightest heavy-handedness from you, and he'll slip the hook. Then we'll never have the chance to land him again."

"Right. And what happens, boyo, when he peeps out through Harry's eyes and spies you looking in monitoring? You'll never have a chance to talk your way out of that one, and we'll be stuffing what's left of you into body bags."

Harry decided. "Moody watches me. I'm not putting you into any more danger than you're already in."

So now they waited in the Shack as Harry's eyes rolled back slightly in his head and he allowed his mind to drift outwards. Snape watched from a corner, able to admit to himself, though not to Moody, that the enchanted blue eye was probably better suited for this stage than his own poor legilimency skills would be.

The sequence of images had been put together like a film being edited, and Harry had rehearsed it over and over and over. Watching him closely, Moody lifted his index finger. The sound image of Lily screaming 'Not Harry' had gone out. The second finger indicated the flash of green light. The third was a seemingly natural but actually carefully staged shot of the iron dagger falling to the floor. Next was Harry's torment as the scar on his forehead stabbed with pain, and finally a shot of Harry as a boy speaking Parseltongue to a boa constrictor in a zoo. The culminating sound bite was Trelawney's voice saying, 'The one with the power to vanquish…' at which point Lupin said his lines.

"Harry. Harry! Get up sleepyhead, we have a lot to do today." Moody shook the boy as Lupin told him again to wake up, and the connection was broken. A quick search with the enchanted eye confirmed that Voldemort was no longer there.

"Did he get it?" Snape demanded. "Did he get it? Did he get the whole thing?"

"He did, boyo, and a beautiful piece of work it was. He'll be panting for more tomorrow morning."

"Should we give it to him all at once, or in dribs and drabs?"

"I think we should tease him a little," said Harry. "Make him suffer. Say, half tomorrow and the rest on Thursday."

Wednesday morning they replayed the images, and this time they went through the prophecy up to the words '…and either must…' before they cut it off. On Thursday they were ready with the whole play. First the Horcrux images, then the prophecy to nearly, but not quite, the end – '…The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born…' and then Lupin was there, prying open Harry's eyes so that Voldemort could see him and yelling, "Moody! Moody! Someone's inside Harry's head! Moody!" Moody crossed the line of Harry's tranced vision, and then they broke the connection.

"Excellent," pronounced McGonagall. "Well acted. He'll think now that we're watching Harry to prevent any further mind touching."

On Saturday they got the message at the drop point in Cardiff: _New orders. P to be brought in but not harmed. Repeat not harmed. Penalty of death._

"Yes!" shouted Lupin, pumping his fists above his head in victory. "We have him! When do we go to the next stage?"

"By the end of the month," Snape said. "We have to warn people first. Remember, don't tell Harry about the others."

The outgoing message went to every drop point they had. It was only four words: _As harmless as doves._

One week later, on the twenty-ninth, the last Sunday of March, they carried out the next step of the plan. It was not done at Hogwarts. Instead, at Harry's request, it was done just outside the entrance of the cave where Dumbledore had been tricked into drinking poison. Also at Harry's request, the group was larger than normal.

In addition to Moody, Snape, McGonagall, and Lupin, there were Tonks, Flitwick, Sprout, and Vance. Harry also insisted on Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. Moody had sputtered and fumed, but Snape stood shoulder to shoulder with Harry and supported the idea. "After all," he pointed out, "if it hadn't been for them, we might not have any of it." Snape himself had taken a Polyjuice pill and came as Russ.

Hermione carried the locket and Moody brought the wand, while McGonagall took charge of the cup. Harry was the only one who could apparate to the spot at first, but he took McGonagall. The two of them then returned and took two others, and they returning brought four. And so, doubling the number with each trip, they were soon all gathered.

It was not a calm day. As befitted the occasion, wind blew, waves crashed, and all were drenched by the salt spray. McGonagall drew enclosing circles around each artifact that sat on the stone ledge, to protect the people from shrapnel. The honor fell by right to Harry, and he approached Ravenclaw's wand first. Pausing, he looked around at all of them, for once it started it had to move quickly and then they had to leave. They would have company enough, soon enough, if they didn't.

"This isn't the first blow in our war," Harry shouted against the wind, "and it won't be the last, but it may be the most important. From this moment, Voldemort will know that his days are numbered. He thought to preserve himself by hiding pieces of himself, not caring who he hurt in doing so. But we have found the pieces, and after today he will be irreparably diminished. After today, he retreats and we advance. After today, he weakens and we strengthen. Once I start, this has to go fast, and then we have to scatter, but right now I'd like all of us to take a moment to remember the man that made this possible, who fought this fight when no one else would, and who provided the information that led us to this day – Albus Dumbledore."

They bowed their heads, as Harry asked. Then he turned back to the wand. Pointing his own wand at it, he proclaimed with determination, _"Horcrux ad nihil!"_ Ravenclaw's wand leapt and splintered in the air. A faint mist emanated from it, then dissipated and vanished. The wand was broken in slivers on the stone.

Next came the cup, and then the locket, Harry quickly pronouncing, _"Horcrux ad nihil!"_ over each. Each cracked and released its own small cloud of mist, and then they were nothing but a broken locket and a broken cup.

"That's it," Moody cried, stepping forward. "Everyone out of here now! Incoming!"

The warning came none too soon, for the first Death Eater had just apparated onto the side of the cliff, slipping and sliding on the moss-covered stone. Others were popping in around them.

The teachers looked first to the students, getting them to apparate at once to Hogwarts. Then the professors followed, making sure they were many yards from the gates so as not to apparate into someone already there, and the members of the Order dispersed to their own homes. The last to go were Moody, Lupin, Tonks, Russ, and… Harry.

"I want to fight them!" Harry screamed, wrestling with Tonks and Russ as Moody and Lupin deflected Death Eater curses. "I want to fight!"

"Fight them now," Russ yelled over the howl of the wind, "and you lose. They win. Which is better, satisfaction now, or ultimate victory?"

It wasn't a real choice. Harry put up his wand, and Tonks apparated with him to safety. Russ joined Moody and Lupin in the exchange of curses with the Death Eaters, then also apparated. It hadn't been as bad a fight as they'd feared, for Avery and Nott were there, and a curiously large number of Death Eater curses seemed to have been deflected.

They made it to Hogsmeade and through the Hogwarts gate. The school was unusually quiet because a large number of students had left for the Easter break. In fact, the student population would soon get smaller, for Hermione, Neville, and Luna were also leaving for Easter break. But not until after the party, which was held in the Room of Requirement.

Harry was the immediate center of attention. "I love what you said," Hermione told him, "it was so, inspiring."

"And the Horcruxes," gushed Ginny. "The way you destroyed them. Masterful."

This prompted Ron to go around the room, his arm flung across his brow in sublime imitation of every prima donna who'd ever made it to Act IV of Grand Opera, intoning, "Masterful, masterful," as if he were about to faint.

Then Moody broke out the firewhisky, and the party really got going, climaxing with McGonagall's lessons on how to dance a Highland fling, and Lupin and Snape harmonizing on 'That Voodoo That You Do So Well.'

The next week was full of work and worry. The work was on Harry's memory redirection and the next message they wanted to send to Voldemort. The worry was about the group of Death Eaters at headquarters who were now in grave danger. No word came from them, which was normal under the circumstances. They had to lie low until the storm passed. Still, it was hard waiting and not knowing whether or not the storm had swept them away.

Hogwarts, by contrast, was unusually quiet with a very large percentage of the student body gone. As at Christmas, many parents had decided the break time was an excellent occasion for visiting foreign countries with their children, and the number of British wizarding families in Mexico or China was astounding. Harry loved it, since Ron and Ginny had stayed at the school but were unencumbered by classes.

The first message came a week and a half later to a London drop. _All fine. PP fled. Hunt up._

"What do you make of it?" Lupin asked Moody as he dropped the scrap of parchment into Moody's lap.

"I'd consider the 'All fine' to mean our friends are all right. Who's PP?"

Snape glanced at the note over Moody's shoulder. "I had lots of students with the initials P.P.," he said. "Pansy Parkinson, Padma Patil, Parvati Patil… Then there's Professor Phoebus Penrose, or our own Poppy Pomfrey…" When the other two didn't respond at all, Snape became irritated. "Come now, what Death Eater do we all know with the initials P.P.? – Peter Pettigrew, for crying out loud!"

"Wormtail." Lupin sighed. "Of course. I just don't always think of him as Peter. Not anymore."

"Did your lot ever call anybody by their real name?"

"Ooh," Moody broke in. "What did they call you?"

"Let's focus on the problem at hand."

Moody raised his eyebrows at Lupin, who laughed and answered, "Snivellus Snake… Shiverus Shake… Sliverpuss…"

"You liar! You never called me Sliverpuss!"

"Not to your face. Sirius could get very creative. My favorite was…"

"Remus!" Snape was advancing threateningly. Moody threw himself between the two and pushed Snape away.

"You were saying, Remus old boy."

"Stanislaus Stake the Fearless Vampire. Or was it the Fearful Vampire? I don't remember."

"I'm going to lace your potion with garlic!"

"That won't hurt."

"No, but you're going to be lonely for several days!"

"Boys! Boys! Let's get back to business!" Moody yelled. "Why would Peter Pettigrew run away from Voldemort?" The other two quieted down.

"My guess," said Snape, "is that the Dark Lord suspects him of having told us something. Maybe about the dagger or where the wand was. But I note that the Dark Lord doesn't want him dead right away. They're looking for him. That means he wants to interrogate Pettigrew to find out who else may have known."

"Which would lead him straight to our people. Why didn't Pettigrew just tell him?"

"It depends on how angry the Dark Lord is. I'd say, right now, very angry. Telling wouldn't spare Pettigrew. May as well run if you can."

Moody thought about it. "But he could still kill from a distance, like he almost did with you."

Snape threw his right arm around Moody's shoulders, drawing him closer and stage whispering conspiratorially. "You know something, 'boyo'? And this is from personal experience. Given a choice between dying over the space of an hour at a distance, or being the Dark Lord's favorite toy close up, I'd prefer the long-distance death. It's faster, and it's less painful. If the Dark Lord is looking to capture Pettigrew rather than kill him outright, my sympathies are with Pettigrew."

"But he's a murderer!" Lupin cried. "He killed a dozen muggles, and Cedric Diggory…"

"And Lily. Oh, and James, too, by giving the Dark Lord their secret. But there are punishments that fit the crime, and punishments that exceed the crime. Falling into the Dark Lord's hands like that… That's in the 'exceeds' column."

"I'll take your word for it," Moody said.

It was only later that the thought came to Snape, and he went immediately to Moody. "I don't think the Dark Lord can find Pettigrew or kill him. Of all of us, Pettigrew is the only one safe running from the Dark Lord."

"Why's that?"

"In his animagus form, he doesn't have a dark mark. As long as he stays a rat, they can't locate him. And there's something else."

"What?"

"As a rat, he can get into Hogwarts. The defenses aren't calibrated to stop anything that small."

"Why would he come here? Other than it's being a place Voldemort can't enter. How long do you think it would take a rat to scurry from wherever your headquarters are up here to northern Scotland?"

"He wouldn't have to 'scurry', he'd just have to get in the baggage car of a train. It isn't so far from Aberdeen. The only good thing is, he might not have a wand."

"And we wouldn't know if he got onto the grounds."

"We would if Harry still has his map."

They went looking for Harry and found him in the Great Hall with Ron and Ginny. Harry had originally left most of his things at the Burrow, but had brought much of it to Hogwarts when he realized he'd be staying more than a few days. Lupin joined them as they all went upstairs to McGonagall's office, where Harry pulled the Marauders' Map out of a bag. He looked around at them, especially at McGonagall, Snape, and Moody, then stood up and went to the door.

"You stay here. The whole world doesn't have to know how to use this." Stepping out of the office, he spoke the charm that revealed the map, then brought it back in. Eagerly the others helped him look it over.

"Are you sure it will show him if he's in rat form?" Moody asked.

"Good heavens," McGonagall said suddenly. "Does this thing show all of us, everywhere? Harry Potter, you horrid child!"

"No, Professor! I mean, I don't look at it all the time. I mean, most of the time I don't look at it at all."

"The map is how we first discovered Wormtail wasn't dead," Lupin cut in, as much to deflect McGonagall's ire as to answer Moody's question. "It showed him running around, labeled as Peter Pettigrew."

There was, however, no Peter Pettigrew on the map.

"If he's coming," Snape said, "and we're not sure he is, he isn't here yet. Harry, could you check that map several times a day for him?"

"Right. Why do you think Wormtail's coming here? I thought he was with Voldemort."

The adults exchanged glances. "I have sources," said Moody. "Voldemort seems to think he had something to do with our getting the Horcruxes."

"Did he?"

"Maybe."

"Okay, don't tell me."

"Harry," said Snape. "You're going to be getting back in touch with the Dark Lord's mind in a couple of days. Even though we'll be monitoring you, something could slip. The less you know about what's happening inside of headquarters, the better."

Harry nodded.

Each day now, they'd been running through little skits involving Harry. They used the Shack because it was unfamiliar to Voldemort, had no apparent connection to Hogwarts, and looked like a place where someone might be kept a prisoner.

The skits were all variations on the same theme. Harry was a captive, and he was expecting to be killed since Lupin and Moody made it clear that they knew he was the last remaining Horcrux. Harry's death was regrettable, but the only way to ensure ultimate victory over Voldemort. Harry tried to persuade them to allow him to live, but Moody was only waiting for approval from the Council, and then he would do it.

On Saturday the eleventh of April, they were ready for the next mind contact with Voldemort.

Moody and Lupin sat beside the old bed where the partially entranced Harry lay, Moody watching Harry with his enchanted eye, ready to break the contact if necessary. Snape hovered in the background, out of the line of Harry's vision. Harry opened his mind and reached outward…

It took no time at all. "There he is," Moody murmured. "Interesting to think we've had him dancing attendance on us every morning at five for nearly two weeks." The playacted scenes began surfacing, dreamlike, in Harry's brain, not in their entirety as they'd been performed, but spotty and skipping from point to point as a legilimens might draw them out during contact.

Moody kept up a running commentary. "There's Lupin telling Harry we're sorry but it's necessary – couple of different pictures of that – and me wondering what's keeping the Council, and Harry asking for some other way than killing him and… Lupin, there's your cue, go."

Lupin stepped in and shook Harry. "Wake up," he shouted. "Harry, wake up! Moody! Get in here quick! He's doing it again!" Then Lupin slapped Harry across the face, and the contact was broken.

"That hurt!" Harry complained, rubbing the side of his face. "Did you have to hit so hard?"

"It had to be convincing to Voldemort. Do you think we hooked him?"

"If I were a betting man, I'd be pulling out the galleons right now. Harry wasn't showing him the 'dream' sequence. Voldemort was probing."

"We'd better go back onto the castle grounds, then," said Snape. "I'd feel a lot safer there."

"What do we do now?" Harry asked.

"If we did everything right, he has no clue where you were." Moody laughed suddenly and slapped his knee. "And the only one at his headquarters who might have been able to identify those images has run away. You're sure no one else ever came here but you and your friends?"

"Certain," said Lupin. "If anyone new had come in, I would have been able to smell it, even days later, and I'd have alerted the other three."

"So with Wormtail on the run, what Voldemort might have seen of this room through Harry's eyes could be anywhere in Britain. My guess is, he'll start hunting. He'll have people out searching the length and breadth of the country for Harry, you, and me."

"And then what?"

"Well, ever since the first messages we let him see, I'll wager he's been working nonstop on some way to get that fragment out of you. So we wait to see what his move 'll be, and then we…"

"You don't know, do you?" Harry said quietly.

"I will admit," Moody said. "That part of the plan is still a little fuzzy."

The next day the students who'd been on holiday began returning to Hogwarts. A trainload, smaller than in September, was coming up from London, but many of them apparated in with worried parents who wanted to be sure their children arrived safely. McGonagall set up a rotating schedule for the teachers to be at the gate to let them in. The hall and the corridors came alive with groups acting as if they hadn't seen each other in years rather than just two weeks, and all of them had accounts of exotic holidays.

Hermione apparated in by herself from the Lake District, where her parents were planning to stay on for a while longer. "So beautiful!" she gushed. "So peaceful. And the towns so full of muggle tourists from all over the world that no one would be able to find one particular muggle family in the crowd. Safety in numbers."

"Tourist seasons starts this early?" Harry laughed.

"Well of course, silly. They all want to beat the summer rush."

She, Ron, and Ginny had gathered in Harry's corner of McGonagall's office to catch up on everything that had been happening, speaking in soft voices so as not to disturb Moody, Snape, and Lupin who were across the room discussing options. Harry took out his map to check for other friends who might be at the castle already.

"Professor Lupin!" he yelled suddenly. "It's Wormtail! He's down by the lake!"

The men hurried over to look, but at the same moment the great bells of Hogwarts began sounding, summoning teachers to the entrance hall. McGonagall burst in the door. "Remus, Alastor, come with me quickly. We're apparating out with as many as I can gather, and I've sent patronuses to the other members of the Order. We leave now. You," she said to Snape, "stay here. We can't have you seen."

"What's happened, Minerva?" Moody asked in the shocked silence.

"Death Eaters have boarded the Hogwarts Express – they're searching the train!"

"I've got to do something!" Harry screamed at Snape. "This is my fault! I've got to help!"

"Point One, it is not your fault. Point Two, at some time in the not-too-distant future you're going to have more than your fair share of problems. We can't risk losing you now."

"So you're counseling me to hide like a coward while my friends are in trouble!"

"Miss Granger, would you talk some sense into your comrade's head? There are more important issues at stake than wallowing in imagined guilt."

"Snape's right, you know, Harry. You can't put yourself in danger right now. We need you for other things."

Hermione, Ron, and Ginny helped Snape keep Harry in the Headmistress's office. It was mostly a matter of letting him vent steam, since deep inside Harry knew that of all of them he was at the moment the least expendable, but the strain on their nerves was great.

Ginny was watching the map. "He's still by the lake. He seems to be waiting for something."

"Or sleeping," said Snape. "He must be exhausted. Catching him there would be difficult. It might be easier if he moved into the castle. Just keep an eye on him."

"How can you be so calm! You're not human!"

Snape looked over at Harry and shook his head. "You're going to get me killed," he said. "If we ever stand together in front of the Dark Lord, your brain is going to blurt out everything you know about me, and he's going to kill me first, then go for you."

"Right now I'm not sure I care!"

"That may actually be the right attitude. Listen, Potter. If you ever do stand in front of the Dark Lord and let something slip that shouldn't have slipped, I'd consider it a favor if you'd do something for me."

"What's that?"

"From that moment on, just concentrate on how much you hate me and want to see me dead."

"That'll be easy."

The door opened then and McGonagall swept in followed by Lupin and Moody. The expressions on their faces boded no good. "Sit down," McGonagall told the students. "This isn't going to be easy."

"The train?" Hermione gasped.

"Is under our control, Miss Granger. We've left guards, and it should have no further trouble. You are most fortunate that you came here on your own though. It seems the Death Eaters knew exactly what they were looking for. They've taken Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom."

The room seemed to go cold. Harry was looking at the others in fury. "It never occurred to you that Voldemort 'd do this did it?"

"No," sighed Moody. "We assumed he'd go after you."

"Well he's gone after me, hasn't he? He knows I have to go after them! And I have to go now, before he kills them!"

"No," Snape intervened. "He's not going to kill them. He'll want to take very good care of them. My guess is he's taken them to stop Moody and Lupin from killing you. As long as they're alive, he can force them to keep you alive."

"What are you talking about?" screamed Hermione. "Who's going to kill Harry?"

Ron and Ginny pulled her aside to explain the plan up to that point.

Harry was listening now, though, rather than screaming. Snape thought for a moment. "He thinks you're a prisoner, so he knows you can't come right away. He may want to contact you the way you've been contacting him, so tonight we go to the Shack to see if we get a message from the Dark Lord."

"Then what?" McGonagall asked.

"It depends on where they are. If they're inside headquarters, we may be able to do something."

"All right, boyo, now you have to explain. Why is it a good thing for them to be inside your headquarters?"

"After the fiasco at the Ministry, the Dark Lord sent me, Yaxley, Bella, and Pettigrew to locate a new building. I helped set it up. I helped put in the defenses. Unless he's changed them, if I can get inside with a wand, I can bring them down. We have to get Pettigrew. He'll know."

All the students were sent to their houses to be told of the attack on the train, and then the prefects were asked to keep them there. It was best if as few people as possible were aware that Wormtail was on the grounds.

McGonagall led the posse that went out to surround Pettigrew, Lupin carrying the map. Sprout and Flitwick went down the cliff path, 'Switch' and Moody took the boat harbor under the cliff, while McGonagall and Lupin approached from the Willow side. 'Scabbers' sensed them a moment too late, tried to run, and was trapped by magical barriers on all sides.

They brought Pettigrew into McGonagall's office shivering with fear and cold. McGonagall had allowed him an old cloak to warm himself, and he looked quite miserable, tired and shifty-eyed as they came through the door. His right hand was missing, leaving the stump of a wrist – apparently the magical silver hand resisted animagus transformation. Pettigrew's reaction when he saw Snape was electric. He screeched, jumped in the air, whirled, and tried to run, stopped by Moody's none-too-gentle arms.

"I see you two are old friends," said Moody.

"You're… you're alive…" Pettigrew stammered.

"Yes. I see you are, too. Would you like to remain that way? At least for a little while?" Snape's voice was silky smooth, and as cold as he could make it.

Harry stepped forward. "I say we just kill him now. Like he killed Cedric Diggory. The 'spare'."

Pettigrew squeaked and dropped to his knees. "No. No. He made me do it. You saw how he forced me. I couldn't help myself."

"Who else has he 'forced' you to kill, Wormtail?" Lupin asked.

Harry's eyes were blazing. "You killed Cedric with Voldemort's wand. Did you kill Bertha Jorkins with Voldemort's wand?" Pettigrew whimpered as Harry held his own wand to Pettigrew's head. "Did you kill my parents with Voldemort's wand?"

"Minerva," Snape said quietly. "Can you put a complete shield around this office? He has the mark now, and even if the Dark Lord isn't searching for him this minute, once we start 'working' on him, the Dark Lord will be able to feel it. The shield should block it."

"Well of course, Severus dear lad. Anything for you." McGonagall spun her wand.

"Please… please… don't hurt me. I wasn't responsible… I had no choice…" Pettigrew was twisting his hand in the cloth of the cloak, shaking with terror. "I'll do anything, give you anything."

"Oh, but there's nothing we want," Snape said sweetly, "except you. I particularly love the 'no choice' angle. No choice to tell the Dark Lord about Benjy Fenwick? Or Marlene McKinnon? What about Caradoc Dearborn and Edgar Bones? And let's not forget Dorcas Meadows. I had to watch that one at the end. Or maybe we can bring Molly Weasley over and discuss what happened to Gideon and Fabian. And I'm sure you had no choice about telling Sirius that it was a bad idea to make you secret keeper."

Pettigrew was groveling. "Anything. Ask me anything. I'll tell you anything."

"There's nothing I don't already know. The Dark Lord thinks I'm dead, Bella thinks she's second in command, and nothing has changed."

"Your laboratory!"

Snape allowed the pause, to give Pettigrew hope. "What about my laboratory?"

"The Dark Lord opened it after you'd… gone. The clinic staff uses it now. They brew the medicines."

"Oh, really? Anything else of mine that the Dark Lord decided wasn't good enough? The holding cells, the defenses, the cafeteria? He didn't tear up my garden in the back, did he?"

Pettigrew was confused. "I didn't know you had a garden… No, nothing's changed. It's all the same as it was… Please… Malfoy's back. And Avery…"

"We know that," said Moody. "We read _The Daily Prophet_. We know people in the Ministry."

It was 'good cop' time. "You know," McGonagall said, somewhat waspishly, "there might be some small tidbit of information in there that could be useful. Would it hurt if we waited to dispose of him until we were sure we had everything?"

"Yes! Yes! Dear Lady! I'm sure I can think of things if you just give me time!"

They debated in Pettigrew's presence so that he could note the arguments in favor of killing him and be spurred to greater cooperation, and then McGonagall locked him in Professor Flitwick's office, in the same spot where Sirius Black had been confined four years earlier, guarded by a series of powerful charms.

Moody waited until they were all back in McGonagall's office before he exploded.

"Laboratory! Clinic! Cafe-freaking-teria? What did you put together there?"

"Don't tell me you think that all we do is run around in hoods and masks scaring muggles. This is not a low budget organization. There's a supply section, a maintenance/janitorial crew – only the people in Operations actually go out on assignment. I've never been in Operations, by the way. Just the supply side of things."

"Does that mean you really never killed anybody? Well, before…" Hermione asked.

"Miss Granger, it means exactly that. My soul, such as it is, is whole."

"I'm glad to know that. To be certain, I mean. Well, people tell you things, but that doesn't always mean they tell the truth…" Snape raised his eyebrows, and Hermione slowed to a stop.

"Next step?" Snape said.

"Wait until tonight to see if Voldemort contacts us through Harry." Moody replied.

xxxxxxxxxx


	18. Chapter 18 – Operation Liberate

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Operation Liberate**

The four of them went back to the Shack after curfew, there being no point in waiting until five o'clock in the morning if it was Voldemort who was going to contact them. The message came at midnight.

Harry was drifting in a state bordering on sleep when Voldemort touched his mind. Harry stirred and moaned, and Lupin was there instantly. "Moody!" he called. "Someone's coming through."

Moody took his position by the bed, holding Harry's head and forcing the eyelids open so that Voldemort could see him. "I'm here," he growled. "Say your piece."

There was silence as Moody's eye read Harry's mind, then Moody grunted.

"What does he say?" Lupin asked.

"We're not to kill the boy. He'll trade the other two for the boy. I say getting rid of him is worth the lives of three children."

"No," said Lupin. "We have to put this before the Council. They need to decide. You tell him that."

Moody stared back into Harry's eyes, and then the connection was gone. "We're on hold for a few days. That's bought us time."

Harry roused, shaky but in control. "He says they're unharmed. They're all right. Can we believe him."

"Probably," said Snape as he came to sit on the bed. "He knows that if he harms them he removes our reasons for keeping you unharmed. I think he'll take care of them very well for a while." He settled where he could face Moody easily, then looked into the good eye and touched Moody's mind. It took a few seconds. "That's it," he said when he'd finished. "That's the interview chamber, and Lovegood and Longbottom are in a holding cell in the basement. That's what that picture of them was."

They were back in McGonagall's office, sharing information and debating the next step.

"I am not sure," McGonagall stated flatly, "that I want you going into that place by yourself."

"I'll be a lot safer by myself than if I take one of you with me."

"You won't even get close," Hermione mourned. "You disobeyed his orders, remember? He'll see you, and punish you, and kill you. You won't have a chance to help Neville and Luna."

"She's right, Severus." Lupin added his voice. "This is suicide."

"It probably would be if I went in as myself, but I am not doing that. I'm going in as someone else."

"As Russ?" said Hermione. "But Professor, Neville and Luna know who Russ is."

"That's right," said Harry. "He'll read it in their minds. He'll know right away."

"It may interest you to know, Potter," Snape retorted, "that you are not the only one who has taken occlumency lessons. And just for your information, both Longbottom and Lovegood are considerably better at it than you are."

Snape, like Harry, had a bag by his bed, and he crossed over behind the privacy curtain and removed a set of muggle clothes – shirt, trousers, jacket, shoes – and the bottle of Polyjuice pills. He spent a few minutes with his wand inserting a large number of the pills into the seams of the clothing, then took another in his hand. "If you will excuse me," he told the others, "I would prefer to do this in somewhat more privacy, and he went up the stairs to the bedroom. A few minutes later, Russ came down dressed in the muggle clothes.

It was a somber little procession that walked out of Hogwarts a few hours before dawn and made its way down the hill. Harry, glaring at the others, insisted on walking ahead with Russ so that they could talk privately.

"I should be going. You shouldn't all have your lives put in danger because of me. This is my job."

"Not yet. Your turn will come."

"I can't let you go in there alone. No one to back you up. What happens if you get into trouble?"

"Potter, your presence would be the biggest trouble I could ever have."

"Take me with you!"

"I can't. You don't have the secret, and I can't show it to you."

"Isn't it going to be suspicious if 'Russ' knows the secret?"

"He won't. He's going to see someone exit the building, as if by accident, get suspicious, and they'll have to pick him up."

"Let me do something!"

"I'll take you part way. You can hold my wand."

"Won't you need a wand inside?"

"It would just be taken away."

They said their goodbyes and Russ took Harry to the center of Birmingham, a couple of miles from the location of headquarters. "I'm apparating now. When I'm gone, use the Accio spell to retrieve my wand. Hold it for me until I get back."

"All right," Harry said. I just wish…"

"Listen, Potter. I'm the careful planner, remember. I have a dozen scenarios orchestrated, the ground work done months ago. I have no intention of sacrificing myself for anyone. The simple truth of the matter is that no one else could get in there but me and, more to the point, no one else has a better chance of getting out. Now, when I get back, I want to find my wand in good condition. I am quite attached to it, as it was my grandfather's. Understand."

"Yes, sir."

"And as soon as you have it, get back to Hogwarts and wait."

"Yes, sir. Good luck, sir."

Russ apparated to a spot across the street from headquarters, where he could see the building clearly. It was almost time for the earliest operatives to arrive and replace the night shift. Russ carefully laid his wand on the top of a dustbin, and watched with satisfaction as it was swept away by the Accio spell a minute later. Then he set himself to wait.

Several Death Eaters arrived, one at a time, but none that was just right for Russ's purpose. Then one of the cafeteria workers apparated to the next corner and headed for the front door. Right behind him, about twenty yards away, Amycus and Alecto Carrow also appeared. None of them was paying sufficient attention, which was what Russ wanted. He moved quickly.

As the worker approached the wall and gate, Russ strode rapidly across the street so that he was near the point where a person without the secret would see the worker simply disappear as he turned into the walkway and headed toward the door. When this happened, Russ froze, staring at the spot where a human being had supposedly just vanished. Then he looked up, straight into the eyes of Amycus Carrow.

Amycus roared, "Stop!" but Russ wheeled and started down the street at a dead run. He heard the yell, "Stupefy!" and caught the glimmer of red light out of the corner of his eye, and then he was hurled forward onto the pavement and lost consciousness.

He woke up an unknown time later in the interview chamber, lying on his stomach with his hands bound behind his back. He had a ferocious headache.

"Our visitor has decided to awaken," said the Dark Lord's cold, high voice as he put away his wand. "Perhaps he will explain himself to us."

"Who are you?" Russ said, trying to accentuate the fear in his voice. It wasn't hard. Pain lanced through him, and he cried out.

"It asks questions. The muggle child asks questions. Questions are for it to answer, not ask. Why did it spy on our people?"

"Please, I don't… I didn't… I didn't spy, but he just disappeared. Just like that. I was scared…"

"Bring it to me."

Hands wrenched at Russ's arms and dragged him before the Dark Lord, forcing him into a kneeling position. He had a quick glimpse of the room and noted that Bella was there in addition to the Carrows. There were others as well, but he couldn't see who they were. Whoever was standing behind him seized his hair and forced his head back.

The Dark Lord gently placed his hands on either side of Russ's head, then dug his long nails into temple and jaw, and held the boy's eyes open with his thumbs. "What is the muggle whelp's name?"

"Russell… Dale… please…"

"Do not comment. Only answer. Why was it outside our home this morning?"

"I was going to a drugstore… a… a chemist. My aunt wanted some medicine…"

"It is not English. Where is it from?"

"The U.S.A., San Francisco…" The red eyes touched his, and the images began to spill out, St. Francis Wood and St. Ignatius school, Golden Gate Bridge and Golden Gate Park, Yosemite and Muir Woods, and picture after picture of Market Street, the Embarcadero, the Sunset District, Noe Valley… and of course, of Cataluña and Brendon, for the name Moody could not surface here.

The Dark Lord threw back his head and laughed. "That's your father! It is no wonder your mother wants a divorce!" His gaze left Russ, and Amycus buckled with the pain. "This is a worthless muggle child."

"Shall I dispose of him, Lord?" Bella asked.

"No. We question the timing of his arrival. That it should be so close to that of the other two. Place him with them. Moody will have to buy three instead of two. If he will not, the muggle dies."

The cafeteria worker was brought forward. "Tell all your people that they grow lax, and in doing so anger us," the Dark Lord said to those assembled, and the worker crumbled to the floor, writhing in agony. "No muggle should ever see you enter or leave this place. Go now."

Russ let his legs go limp as they dragged him from the chamber. He saw Malfoy and Rookwood, who were of no immediate use to him, and Yaxley, who was immensely important. Yaxley gave no sign of recognition, but none was needed.

By the time they reached the holding cell, Russ had allowed his legs to support him, so he was able to meet first Neville's eyes and then Luna's as they rose from their cots at the opening of the door. The message was simple – _You don't know me_. Like Yaxley, neither gave any sign of recognition while they were still in the presence of the guards. Then the door of the cell clanged shut.

"Will it be okay if we untie your hands?" Neville whispered.

"I think so," Russ answered. "I would feel a lot better if you did."

"Is it safe to talk? Are they listening to us?" Luna asked as she removed the bonds.

"It's probably okay. He's so sure of his legilimency that he considers the thought of listening in on his prisoners a personal insult to himself." Russ rubbed his wrists gingerly.

"That's lucky," said Neville.

"Has he tried to read the two of you?"

"Yes," replied Luna, "and I want you to know how thoroughly disgusted he is with how stupid we are. He figures Harry wants to be friends with us only because he shines in comparison."

"An opinion I would have shared had I not learned better. You both have done excellently."

"What happens now?"

"We wait. We're not alone."

"We know," said Luna. "We saw. At first we were disappointed, but now we know he was just waiting."

And wait they did, a seemingly endless time, though in reality it was only two days. Time was measured by the provision of food and the lowering of lights to sleep. And the pills. Russ checked the Polyjuice pills in the seams of his clothing and was relieved to find no one had bothered to search carefully enough to find them. Since he was unsure how much time had elapsed since he'd taken the last one, he held off taking the next one until he felt the first tingle of coming change. About four in the afternoon, he thought, and took a three-hour pill. When the second pill began to wear off at what Russ thought was probably seven in the evening, he took a twelve-hour pill.

The next morning Russ took a six-hour pill, not wanting to waste the twelve-hour ones, and they waited. Fairly certain now that they were not being observed, Russ chanced a few quick instructions.

"When the time comes, it might be a portkey, and I'll use… Neville's clothing. No item is certain, but I really doubt he'll disrobe you. If we use a portkey, the cue will be that I turn off the defenses. When that happens, we have to move fast – we'll have just a couple of seconds. And don't be afraid if I start acting funny in the meantime. It could be just acting. Only… on the surface of your minds, show him you don't trust me."

Breakfast came, and lunch came, and Russ took another six-hour pill. He, Neville, and Luna talked from time to time, encouraging each other that things were moving behind the scenes, but mostly they lay in silence on the cots. They could hear occasional movement in the corridor outside, and once or twice muffled speech that they couldn't quite understand. Supper came, and the end of the day. Russ took a twelve-hour pill, waited a while, then went to sleep.

The second morning started out like the first. Wake up, take a pill, receive breakfast… Then, about nine in the morning, it changed. There was the sound of feet running past in the corridor, doors banging, and people yelling to each other. Then silence. Around eleven the door to their cell burst open, and guards rushed into the small room, grabbing Russ and lashing his arms behind his back. Yaxley was there, and in the fraction of a second when their eyes met, he shook his head sadly. It was the only warning Russ got. Neville and Luna were pushed back against the wall as Russ was dragged roughly from the room, along the corridor, and into the interview chamber.

The room was black except for the circle of light in the center – more for an execution than an interrogation – and there were a few other Death Eaters ringing the circle, faces hidden in the shadow. What was not hidden was the other prisoner, kneeling bound on the edge of the light at the Dark Lord's feet. As the guards hauled him into the center of the chamber, Russ realized to his horror that it was Harry, and when Harry glanced over at Russ, his face was suffused with shame and sorrow. Two wands, Harry's and Snape's, lay on the arm of the Dark Lord's chair.

Inside Russ, Snape's mind began to close, lock down, and fold in on itself. The guards pulled him forward, then pushed him to his knees before the Dark Lord. There was an expectant silence.

"We are so popular these days," the Dark Lord hissed. "So many young men come prowling around our doors. The first comes, and his mind is pliant but empty. The second comes, and he faces us with defiance. Then, on a whim, we think to show the first young man to the inner eye of the second…" The Dark Lord leaned forward and traced the line of Russ's jaw with one long talon. "You are most welcome here, Severus. We had not thought to see you again."

The silence returned for several heartbeats. Then, "I don't know what you're talking about," Russ said, his voice trembling with fear.

The Dark Lord released his fury in a long howl. The back of his hand struck Russ's head and flung him sideways to the floor. _"Crucio!"_ he shrieked, and Russ's back arched in agony, his body and mind submerged in an ocean of fire. The mind hung suspended in flame while the body kicked and twisted and screamed. The curse ceased, and they dragged him again to the Dark Lord, who seized his head in a viselike grip and pried his eyes open. There was nothing there but terror and pain, and the images of a boy who grew up in California.

"We do not know this mind!" the Dark Lord raged. "It is not the mind of Severus! You have lied to us!" and he whirled on Harry, wand outstretched. Harry, too, cried out in pain and writhed on the floor.

"Lord!" Lucius Malfoy stumbled forward and dropped to his knees, himself shaking with fear. "Is it possible he's under an Imperius curse?"

"Silence! Do you dare lecture us!" and Malfoy was cast backwards. But the Dark Lord relented suddenly of his anger. "Search this thing!" he cried, pointing at Russ. "Every fold and crevice." Rough hands poked and prodded, and the guards discovered the pills hidden in Russ's clothing. These they laid before the Dark Lord, who picked one up saying, "What is this?" then handed it to a guard with the command, "Swallow it."

In less than a minute, there was a second Russ standing before the Dark Lord. "Polyjuice," the Dark Lord whispered. "How ingenious. Take him away until he is himself again. We need only one of these creatures." He gestured at Russ. "Untie his hands. I wish to watch what he does." Then the Dark Lord settled back in cruel anticipation. "Now we wait a little, to see what happens."

The time of transformation neared, and Russ pushed himself to his hands and knees. "Pill," he muttered, plucking at his clothes. "I must take a pill." Finding no pills, he became agitated, seeming almost to panic. "Pill," he cried, "where's the pill?" ripping at pockets now and tearing at seams. Words and actions became more and more frantic as the transformation began, Russ now clawing at his own skin in desperation.

The Dark Lord smiled and pointed his wand_. "Libero,"_ he said lazily, and Russ's pleading stopped. A few moments later he was Snape, kneeling in the circle of light in torn muggle clothing.

Giving his prisoner no time to think, the Dark Lord rose quickly and again pointed his wand. "You will never deceive us again," he said, and another Cruciatus curse flared through Snape's body. Twenty seconds of fire, and then there was a pause.

"Lord…" Snape managed to cry, but was cut off as pain flared again. Ten seconds of agony, five seconds of rest, over and over again for a full ten minutes as Snape twisted and writhed in torment, screaming wordlessly, and Harry watched, teeth clenched and jaw hard, forcing himself to remember a time, years before, when he'd thought he would enjoy a scene like this.

"What is your crime?" the Dark Lord asked softly, finally permitting the pain to fade. Snape lay prone before him, gasping for breath, his ribs heaving. "What is your crime?" the question came again.

"I disobeyed you." The words came out in a sob. Snape moved to wrap his head with hands and arms.

"And what response does such disobedience warrant."

"I must be punished," Snape whimpered. Across the circle of light, Harry remained rigid.

"Indeed." The torture began again, and lasted longer this time, until Snape began to noticeably weaken, his screams growing fainter and his movements slower. There was another pause. "Tell us again, what do traitors deserve?"

"You must punish me," Snape gasped, lying motionless before his lord.

There was silence as the master contemplated his erring slave, then the Dark Lord knelt next to Snape and touched his temple with one claw. "Was Macnair right about you after all?" he whispered. "Is this how we bind you to us? Poor little potions maker. Think how much you will love us when we are finally done with you. Sit up!" The Dark Lord returned to his seat.

Snape dragged himself upright and looked around as if dazed. He seemed to have no comprehension of where he was. "Come to us, Severus," the Dark Lord beckoned. "Come to us. We need to see your mind." Snape focused on the voice and crawled on hands and knees to huddle before his lord. "Good boy," the Dark Lord said, and lifted Snape's head to search his eyes.

"You should have died, Severus. Do you remember why?"

"I disobeyed you. I deserved punishment." Images were flooding out now of burning pain and impending death in Oxford.

"Why did you leave us?"

"I was taken against my will… Moody." Scalpels slicing his flesh… the delirium of long illness… Lupin jabbing a hypodermic needle into his arm… restraining spells… searching for escape… Moody hitting him with a curse as they fought… the cell in Moody's cellar… three wizards forcing his wand up as he struggled to defend himself… pills… drugs… Snape presented a kaleidoscope of images showing imprisonment, helplessness, and coercion.

"Where is Dumbledore?"

"He is dead."

"We do not see that."

"They took my memory and stored it in a pensieve." The pensieve image surfaced.

"We saw him in February. He fought us."

"That was his brother, Aberforth." Now the images were of Moody disguising brother to impersonate brother.

"That was cleverly done." The Dark Lord's eyes glittered with pleasure at the welcome news.

Then the Dark Lord drew back and gripped Snape's left wrist, pushing the sleeve back and probing the scabs and scars with long nails. "This was poisoned in the cutting. It has not healed yet. We must give you a new one. Would you like that, Severus?"

"Yes, Lord. As soon as possible. I'm lost without your presence."

"The prospect does not frighten you."

"It is only being without my lord's protection that frightens me."

"Good. But something special this time, just for you. We do not want you straying again. We thought to wed the mark to the flesh, forgetting that arms can be amputated without loss of life. This time we will mark the skull on your back, and the snake will circle your body and rest its head on your heart. With time the mark will penetrate your heart, your lungs, the very center of your being, and no one will be able to cut it from you while you live. Will you accept this gift from us?"

Snape's eyes closed, then opened again to meet the red ones. "Yes, Lord," he said.

The Dark Lord rose, wand in hand, and stepped to the center of the light, behind his kneeling servant. Almost tenderly he drew the wand down the middle of Snape's back, cutting through the cloth of jacket and shirt to expose the skin. Snape braced himself for the first branding touch, but it didn't come. Instead there was silence.

"Who did this?" the Dark Lord hissed, and his hands parted the clothing. "You have been whipped. Who did this?"

"It was a long time ago, Lord."

In one quick sinuous movement, the Dark Lord was in front of Snape again, wand raised, left hand around Snape's throat, thumb and forefinger clenching the jaw, forcing the head up and back. "You have not shown us this before!"

"You did not request it." Snape's voice was again reduced to a sob.

"You were whipped! Someone nearly flayed the skin off your back! Who did this!"

Snape couldn't speak, but his eyes remained riveted to the Dark Lord's, and the image of Albus Dumbledore, his face distorted with anger, flashed between them.

Releasing Snape's head and throat, the Dark Lord stepped back, his face split by a horrid smile. Then he began to laugh, a cruel high laugh that pierced the listeners to the bone. "Dumbledore!" he shouted to the room. "Perfect, saintly, be-kind-to-everyone Dumbledore beats his servants into obedience!" His hand went down again and lifted Snape's chin, but this time it was gentler. "We fear we cannot give you the brand you wish. We would never remove even the smallest trace of the signs that prove Dumbledore's hypocrisy. You will receive the mark of our service on your right arm."

He grasped Snape's right wrist, cut the sleeve of the jacket, and pushed back the sleeve of the shirt. Then with his wand he drew the tattoo of skull and serpent on the skin. Snape watched the process quietly, then lifted his eyes to his master.

"Thank you, Lord," he said.

"Take him now, and give him more suitable clothing. Then bring him back. There is more he must answer for, and more he must tell us. And we must decide what to do with the other one."

Lucius Malfoy pulled Snape to his feet and out of the chamber, then summoned the guards. "Take him and find robes for him. Then bring him back here." The guards were moving to obey when another voice stayed them.

"Why Lucius, wouldn't it be better if you did that yourself?" Bella Lestrange had also come out of the chamber and was smiling at him. It wasn't a kind smile.

"That's servants' work," Malfoy snarled. "Let them do it."

"Of course it's servants' work. That's why I want you to do it. Besides, you are the Dark Lord's servant, aren't you?" They glared at each other in absolute mutual hatred. "Or should I tell him his service is beneath you?"

Defeated, Malfoy bowed his head. "Yes, my lady," he growled, then steered Snape away towards the supply area.

In silence the two of them went through the robes, looking for something simple and black that would fit Snape and appear modest and penitent. When Snape was dressed as a wizard again, Malfoy stood back a little, took out a pair of gloves, and put them on. Then he reached into his own robes, pulled out two wands, and handed them to Snape.

"It would be greatly appreciated," he said, "if you could contrive to stand near several other people in the course of the next session so that later it might be claimed that one of them helped you."

"But you…"

"…was never near the place where they were stored. It can be proven that I could not have taken them."

"Whose…"

"The two children. We cannot get yours and Potter's. The Dark Lord is keeping them."

"Tha…"

Malfoy stopped him with a raised hand. "Watch over Narcissa and Draco."

They returned to the interview chamber in silence. Now Harry was kneeling before the Dark Lord being read. Snape pushed his apprehension down.

"Come, Severus. Join us. We have not yet finished our chat. This pathetic part-blood, by the way, is proving more interesting than we would have thought. Have you any idea how deeply and passionately he hates you?"

Snape dropped to his knees, bowed his head, then raised his eyes. "Potter has never been known for showing good sense, Lord."

"He has shown us something we have long desired to see – the death of Dumbledore. Oh, we took images from Fenrir and Alecto… but their minds are hardly of the same sharpness, nor the images of the same quality. A pity that yours were taken from you. We should have enjoyed seeing them as well. We did have a few questions, though, Severus. Why, for example, did you throw him from the tower? The Killing curse does not do that." Pain tingled down Snape's spine, and he gasped. Harry watched in silence.

"It was not my intention, Lord. I came to the tower to do your bidding and help young Malfoy destroy Dumbledore, but when I got there, I was overcome with anger."

"Explain."

"For so long, Lord, I had been forced to pay lip-service to Dumbledore in order to serve you. He was a cruel and exacting master, and the hatred I had bottled inside me was powerful. Then, knowing you wanted him dead, and seeing him there… It was as if something exploded in me, and the force of that must have been…"

"You murdered him," Harry spat at Snape.

"Silence, puppy," the Dark Lord snapped, and slapped the boy. Then he turned to the assembled Death Eaters, the upper echelon of his organization.

"This despicable, worthless, part-breed cub of a mudblood and a blood traitor has taken something that belongs to me. He will now be forced to give it back, and in doing so, he will die. The 'boy who lived' will live no more, and the wizarding world will lose its Chosen One."

Snape shifted a little on his knees. "Lord?" he said.

The Dark Lord looked down at him in sudden, startled anger. "You dared speak?"

Snape leaned forward on hands and knees, groveling. "Lord, you are my master and I am a worm, and you must punish me for my presumption, but my love for you and my fear of losing you are greater than my fear of punishment, so I must speak. Killing Potter at this time and in this way – do you really think it is wise?"

Snape clutched his stomach and doubled up on his side as pain shot through him, but this was no more than expected, for the Dark Lord could not allow his minions to interrupt him with impunity. When the spasm passed, he lay panting on the ground for a few seconds, then struggled back to his knees. Potter's eyes were wide with shock, but Snape paid him little attention.

"Speak," The Dark Lord commanded.

"Lord, Dumbledore before his death talked of these things and the precious object they contain, and though he was not clever enough to locate them all, he left clues that allowed others to follow the path. What little is left must be treated with the greatest of care, for the sake of all your servants who follow you and would rather die than lose you. Lord, has one of these precious items ever before been removed intact from the receptacle that holds it?"

"This will be the first time. Continue."

"Lord, this is no book or ring to lie inert while the spell is cast. It is a young, strong wizard who would do all in his power to prevent the spell from succeeding because he wishes your destruction. What if he were to hold to the object, and die before it could be released? Or worse, retain part of it so that you, Lord, were left with something broken and incomplete? He would die knowing he had cheated you of your victory, knowing himself a hero.

"But if you took care to extract what belongs to you without killing him, then you could be certain it was well and fully done. Not only that, you would see the defeat in his eyes and still have the pleasure of killing him at your leisure and by whatever means you would find most entertaining. Is that not worth the time and the care?" Snape bent his head in obeisance.

The Dark Lord chuckled, an eerie sound. "We have missed you Severus. For all your moments of frailty, there is none among our servants who sees our interests the way you do. You have spoken well. We shall study this matter and reconvene later. Take this part-breed thing to a cell, and Severus, you have our permission to go to the clinic. However, Bella, you will place a guard on Severus, who has not yet entirely climbed back into our good graces." And the Dark Lord was gone.

Harry was pulled to his feet and taken away. Bella came to stand next to Snape and watched with amusement as he struggled upright. "Gad, but I miss Macnair at times like this," Bella said. "He would have loved it." She poked Snape in the stomach. "How does it feel?"

"You should try falling from the Dark Lord's favor yourself from time to time, Bella, just for the pleasure of experiencing it. Who are you setting as my keeper?"

"Let's see. Who of all my little boys and girls never really liked you?" She looked around. "Nott! Come over here. Accompany Snape to the clinic. And then see that he gets something to eat and is tucked nicely into bed. He'll need to be fresh for his next session with the Dark Lord." She waved goodbye coquettishly and left them.

"Come on," said Nott. "You remember the way."

The staff at the clinic treated Snape more warmly. "We miss you, you know," said one of the healers. "It seems we haven't gotten half the supplies we need since you've been gone. Nobody understands how you managed to get so much done and teach at Hogwarts into the bargain."

"Good organizational skills," Snape replied, and the healer smiled.

Feeling considerably better, Snape let Nott take him to the cafeteria. They sat at a table in a corner, and in a way the public area was exceedingly private, for no one felt secure enough in the Dark Lord's ultimate decision about Snape's fate to want to come near. So Snape and Nott could talk in short snippets of conversation.

"Did Lucius give you…?" Nott asked.

"Yes, both." Snape replied.

"Do you know…?"

"Not yet. I'll be improvising."

"You know we can't help."

"I wouldn't want you to. I need to have you still here. Just stay out of the way."

"You got it."

Snape's new room was a slightly higher class cell. He didn't care. He lay on the cot and fell immediately asleep, the danger in fact making it easier, for while wakefulness in a forest infested with wild beasts will improve your chances of survival, wakefulness in a prison cell will not. It was a good thing he'd slept while he could, for the Dark Lord called them back at two in the morning.

The interview chamber looked completely different. Those who had never seen it fully lit by the torches on the walls were amazed at its size, for it was more than twice as long and half again as wide as they'd thought, the narrow beams of light for interrogation sessions being used intentionally to make it impossible to see the sides of the room.

The Dark Lord's seat was not in the center. Instead it was on a dais in the middle of one of the long walls. In the center of the room was a slanted board with attachments, a kind of rack clearly meant to hold a human form, with straps to bind head, arms, legs, and torso. Nearby there was a little table covered in purple silk. On the table rested a crystal globe that shimmered in the torchlight, picking up and refracting the purple of the cloth.

Those Death Eaters who had been called as witnesses to the Dark Lord's victory entered and stood along the walls. It was probably habit that kept most of them near the doors, and so the far end of the room was empty.

The Dark Lord himself entered and took his place on the dais. "Welcome, all who join us in this day of triumph. This is a great moment of fulfillment for us all. After today, bereft of its Chosen One, the wizarding world will kneel before our power, and we shall control all – for evermore. Bring in the guests of honor."

The first to enter were Luna and Neville, flanked by guards. They saw Snape standing with the Death Eaters, but didn't react. Snape noticed with satisfaction that they weren't bound or restrained. They apparently weren't considered dangerous enough. They were brought to stand opposite the Dark Lord where they would have a good view of the 'rack.'

Then the guards brought Harry in. Harry seemed also to have gotten some sleep, for he was struggling fiercely against his captors and the instant he saw the Dark Lord, he began shouting. "You won't get it! You'll never get it! I'll fight you every inch of the way! I'm no sniveling coward to crawl at your feet! If I can't kill you with my own hands, I'll make you destroy it when you're forced to kill me! Then anyone with a wand will be able to take you on! You can't have it!"

His own wand in hand, the Dark Lord gestured to several Death Eaters, Bella and Snape among them, to bind Harry to the rack. Harry turned at Snape's approach and spit in his face. Snape raised a hand, but didn't strike. Instead he wiped the spittle from his cheek with a handkerchief.

"Do not worry, Severus," the Dark Lord said. "We will allow you a measure of vengeance."

Harry was pushed into a semi-kneeling position, his chest pressed against the boards, straps holding his legs and torso immobile, and his arms down and slightly away from his body. His chin rested on a sort of shelf with braces on the sides so he couldn't move his head. It was clear that what the Dark Lord was most interested in was the scar on Harry's forehead.

"The physical possession of another body is difficult, but not impossible," the Dark Lord said as he crossed the room to face Harry. "Our servants have seen us possess the snake Nagini, and you of all people should remember that enchanted moment when we were one, when you were possessed by us in the Ministry of Magic. We shall now repeat that moment, to ensure that what we seek is held, whole and entire and within our reach."

A twist of his wand, and the Dark Lord's own body seemed to swirl in mist, and that mist penetrated Harry's nostrils, ears, and even the corners of his mouth, while Harry struggled helplessly in his bonds. The invasion was clearly agonizing, and for a moment it looked as if Harry would faint. Then Harry's mouth moved, and a sepulchral voice spoke through it.

"Let this day, the sixteenth of April, be forever a day of remembrance, for on it Lord Voldemort triumphed over his enemies, and destroyed them, and on this day the world bowed at his feet and worshipped him. May Lord Voldemort rule from this day forth for evermore."

Then the mist of the Dark Lord's spirit left Harry and returned to its own body, leaving the boy limp and exhausted. The Dark Lord smiled. "That which we seek lies whole and entire behind the eyes of this worthless part-breed. Now we shall bring it forth in honor, ready to be used where and when we decide.

Laying the tip of his wand against Harry's scar, the Dark Lord pressed in, as if attempting to push the wand into Harry's skull. Just as it seemed the bone must crack, he paused, seized the crystal globe from the table, and began to draw the wand away. Behind it, out through the scar, was pulled something that looked like a long, luminous larva, puffy and translucent. The Dark Lord drew on it slowly as it stretched into the room, seeming in peril of breaking, but then it was out, and was inserted into the globe. After carefully placing the globe back on the table, the Dark Lord grasped Harry's head and stared into his eyes.

"It is done!" he cried to the assembled Death Eaters. "Potter has given up what belongs to me. He carries no shred of it in him. Unbind him."

As the Death Eaters cheered and rejoiced, Harry slumped to the floor. But his ordeal was not yet over.

"Severus, we promised you a measure of vengeance. Now is your chance. We would see some sport before we kill. This thing is yours to play with for a while. Let him know what is in store. Do not be gentle. All you need remember is that maiming and killing belong to us. Oh, and you may want this." The Dark Lord held up Snape's wand, extended a hand, and gave the wand to Snape. His own wand the Dark Lord kept ready, in case Snape proved less obedient than expected.

Snape strode into the center of the room. "Get up, Potter," he snarled. "Detention time."

"Let us make this more sporting, Severus," the Dark Lord said as the small table with its precious globe was moved to his side. "Here is the whelp's own wand. If he can get his hands on it, he may use it against you." He laid the wand at his feet.

Harry struggled to his feet, Snape baiting him all the while. "Come on, Potter, we haven't got all day. Let's see what the Chosen One can do. Impress me."

Harry dove for the wand, and Snape hit his hands with a series of stinging hexes, then a tripping jinx to knock his feet out from under him, and finally an electric shock that had his body shaking in a kind of fit. Then Snape stepped back and waited for Harry to recover.

Staggering up, Harry lunged for the wand again, and was again met with a series of hexes that left him sprawled helpless on the floor. The Death Eaters were cheering and howling with glee, and the Dark Lord was grinning. Neville and Luna were terrified.

"Poor Potter," Snape teased. "Can't do any better than that?"

Harry charged him this time instead of the wand, and Snape flung him to the far side of the room, then hurried across the intervening space to seize the boy by the hair and drag him back to the center of the chamber. For a moment they were alone, Snape's body blocking anyone else's view of Harry.

Quickly he thrust a wand into Harry's hands. "Hide this in your robes, don't show it until the last moment."

"Whose?" Harry said in wonder.

"Luna's. Now fight me."

Snape hauled Harry towards the Death Eaters, but the boy kicked viciously and broke away. Snape shot a spell that sent Harry slithering into a far corner, and in the noise of excitement from the crowd they exchanged more words.

"When I bring down the defenses with an Aperio, you take out the soul fragment. Neville's cloak is the portkey."

The battle now became a malicious, sadistic herding of Harry into the center of the room, nearer to the Dark Lord, nearer to the Death Eaters, nearer to Luna, Neville, and the globe with its soul fragment.

The end came quickly. Harry lay on his back, writhing in pain to the Death Eaters' cheers, exactly in the middle of the chamber. Snape caught him by the collar, twisting and lifting him almost standing. "You will kiss the Dark Lord's feet!" he screamed, and then whispered, "Now."

His weak left arm around Harry, Snape lifted his right to the ceiling and cried "Aperio!" At the same time Harry pulled out Luna's wand, pointed it at the crystal globe, and yelled "Ad nihil!" Even as the globe shattered into fragments, Snape yanked Harry next to Neville and Luna, who had grabbed Neville's cloak the instant Snape's wand pointed upward. Snape was fast, but Harry was faster. As Snape touched Neville's cloak with the Portus charm, Harry pointed Luna's wand at Voldemort's feet and cried, _"Accio Wand!"_

And then they were gone.

They tumbled onto the grass and scrub at the top of Pendle Hill.

Snape was on his feet first, the budding pain in his right arm inspiring speed born of panic. Pulling Neville's wand from his robes he shoved it into the boy's hands. "Apparate!" he shouted at them. "Apparate to Hogwarts! Now!" Then the fire shot through his veins and he dropped to the ground, hugging his arm to his side.

"What about you?" Harry insisted. "He's after you, isn't he? We can't leave you."

"It's too late, he's… it's started already. You have to leave. You have to go." The fire was licking Snape's brain, his skin – the ability to think was gone.

"NO!" Harry screamed, then wheeled and extended his wand. A silver stag shot from the end of it and sped north. "I'm not losing anyone else! Get out of here!" he commanded Luna and Neville, who obeyed and disapparated. Then Harry put his arms under Snape's and struggled to drag him to his feet. Snape had already lost consciousness. Harry apparated.

They came in at the very edge of the perimeter. Death Eaters were popping in around them. Red, green, blue spells were shooting through the predawn darkness, and in the confusion Harry glimpsed Lupin and Moody, McGonagall, Flitwick – and Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley, even Aberforth Dumbledore – in the crowd defending Hogwarts. He clung to Snape's body as hands seized them both and dragged them through the gate.

"He can't die!" Harry was sobbing. "He can't die!"

More hands pried Harry's fingers loose, and a gentle voice said, "And he will not die Harry, not if we can help it, but now you must let me take over."

Harry obeyed and moved aside as Albus Dumbledore knelt beside Snape, wand in hand.

Hagrid was there, too. "You got to step aside for a moment, Harry," he said, and lifted the boy away, then conjured a long shallow basin of water – cold water – and placed Snape in it. "Do you think we need ice?" he asked as Madam Pomfrey knelt by the basin, her hands over Snape's heart to keep it beating.

"If his body gets any hotter we will," Dumbledore replied, pulling up the sleeve of Snape's robe and examining the mark on his right arm. Professor Sprout was there with Neville now, and instructed Neville to concentrate on Snape's head, to keep the fever out of the brain, while she made sure he continued to breathe.

Harry clambered to his feet, battling his own exhaustion. Fighting was somehow still going on beyond the gate. "Where are you going?" Dumbledore demanded.

"I have to help them fight."

"No, you do not. I need you here. Take his hand. Talk to him. Tell him not to give up."

"Can he hear me?"

"Probably."

"Is he going to die?"

"Maybe. But if he does, he will die with us and not in Voldemort's hands. That in and of itself is a good thing. Now let me work."

Using his wand like a laser, Dumbledore began to cut around the lower end of the brand and to strip the skin from the muscle underneath. There was a sudden spike in Snape's body temperature that made the healers gasp in pain, and Hagrid added ice to the water in the basin.

"Light!" called Dumbledore. "I need more light." A light appeared at the end of a wand, and Harry looked up to see Professor Slughorn, who was holding a goblet of potion in his other hand.

"This is good." Dumbledore said after a minute. "The mark is new. It hasn't had time to penetrate far into the flesh. There are some traces here, but I think I can burn them out…"

The change was immediate and dramatic. As soon as the connection broke, the fire left Snape and his heart began to beat independently. "We did it!" Sprout cheered, hugging Harry and Neville, while Pomfrey moved to Dumbledore's side to bandage Snape's arm.

Dumbledore raised Snape's head and showed Harry and Neville how to hold him so that Dumbledore could dribble some drops of potion on his tongue. "We do not want to choke him, now." Snape swallowed convulsively, and Dumbledore smiled. They continued until Snape had managed to take a few spoonfuls of the healing draught.

Meanwhile, Hagrid had conjured a stretcher. They lifted Snape onto it and started up the hill toward the castle. Dumbledore turned in the direction of the gate.

"Where are you going?" Harry cried.

"I need to help ensure that there are no Death Eaters left in Hogsmeade."

"I'm going with you!"

"Harry, I need you with Severus. We have removed the mark, but he is still badly hurt. He was punished, was he not?"

Harry nodded.

"And only you can tell Madam Pomfrey the nature of that punishment to assist her in her healing."

"Yes, sir," Harry said, and started to follow the others.

"And Harry." Harry looked back. "Also tell Madam Pomfrey, when she has the opportunity, to check you as well. I have the feeling Severus was not the only one who was punished."

Snape was, in fact, aware of what had happened around him, the voices and movements sifting through the fire and pain in a dreamlike way. He lay in the hospital wing knowing that Harry was talking quietly with Madam Pomfrey. He could even distinguish some of Pomfrey's words.

"Spleen, liver – he did a number on the stomach, didn't he? That villain always goes for internal organs… Did he hit the back? The spell would've been Ignis Spina…"

After a while he lay covered by cool sheets and warm blankets as Harry's voice murmured, "It's over… you're safe… you're at Hogwarts now… we're going to take care of you… all you need to do is get well… you're safe…" It was a comforting sound, and Snape relaxed and drifted in and out of sleep.

At mid morning Snape was suddenly awake, eyes open and alert in the bright light that flooded through the hospital windows. Harry still sat next to him, and Dumbledore was walking through the doors.

xxxxxxxxxx


	19. Chapter 19 – Memory Games

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: Memory Games**

"Professor!" Harry yelled at a volume fit to wake the dead, and hurled himself into Dumbledore's arms. "I was afraid I'd been dreaming! Hallucinating or something! You're alive!"

"Well, yes, I believe I am. I have, in fact, been alive for some time."

"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you leave me all these months thinking you'd gone? It was terrible. I wanted to kill myself."

"No, Harry. You did not. You wanted to kill Severus. And I cannot tell you how pleased I am that the two of you managed to establish a viable working relationship even believing me to be dead. It is very encouraging."

"I knew you were alive, Headmaster," Snape said from his bed as Dumbledore and Harry approached. Dumbledore sat by the bed, noting sadly the bandages that swathed Snape's arms.

"Not until October. I understand you placed yourself in Harry's power in July, and that he could not kill you. It warmed my heart when I heard of it, and renewed my hope."

"But who told you?" Harry asked. "Did Mr. and Mrs. Weasley…?"

"No, at the time they did not know. It was Remus Lupin. I was also extremely pleased that in those moments when it seemed you might actually do away with Severus here, he did not crack and tell you about me in order to stop it."

"Now why would that please you, Headmaster?"

"Down, Severus, down. I have great faith in Harry's goodness of heart. I would have known that he could not kill you."

"I still want to know why you didn't TELL ME!"

"Sit down, Harry, and try to remain calm. This will be hard to hear, but much as I love and care for you, there are times when I must place someone else above you and love and care for him first. For the past several months, I fear, you have been second in my concern."

"Who was first?" Harry asked, puzzled and struggling to hide his disappointment.

"Severus, of course." Both wizards looked embarrassed and uncomfortable, and Dumbledore held up his hands to forestall comments. "Just think for a minute, Harry. From the moment Severus threw me from the tower and had to run – run from both Voldemort and the Order, by the way, which is a very unpleasant situation to be in – from that moment the possibility existed that at some time he might either be captured by Voldemort or have to return and try to explain his actions. While Voldemort might be angry at Severus's having taken matters into his own hands, the fact that Voldemort believed he had actually killed me meant that Severus had at least a small chance of talking his way out of it and surviving."

"I can see not telling Voldemort, but why not me?"

Dumbledore peered at Harry over his glasses. "Harry, what was practically the first thing you let Voldemort see after you were captured?"

Harry hung his head. "That Russ was really Professor Snape."

"And it put Severus's life in peril, brought him great pain, forced him to accept a new mark on his arm, and nearly killed him. But he survived. Do not be so miserable, Harry, it was what we knew would happen. You have never been able to hide your thoughts. But consider now what would have happened if Voldemort had drawn from you the information that I was still alive. Severus would be dead, you would be dead, Voldemort would have his soul fragment and be making a new Horcrux, and Luna and Neville would still be in his power. Is that a preferable outcome?"

"No," said Harry. "You're right. But isn't it still dangerous to tell me now?"

"Not anymore, Harry. The secret has served its purpose. Severus has burnt his own bridges. After smuggling you a wand, bringing down headquarters' defenses, destroying the soul fragment, and helping the three of you escape, not to mention succeeding in concealing his plans from Voldemort's probes, do you think a little thing like my life or death is going to change Voldemort's feelings about him? No, we must be very careful now that Severus never again falls into Voldemort's power."

"I am so sorry that I caused all this trouble," Harry said, and it was clear he was crying, "but I am so glad to see that you're alive. I dreamt about it. I fantasized about it. And now it's real…"

"There, there," Dumbledore said, his hand on Harry's shoulder. "We are all pleased that so many of the subterfuges can be dispensed with, but we are not out of the woods yet. Voldemort is still out there with his followers, and until he is dealt with, we are not safe. Now, you need to answer some of my questions."

"Anything," Harry said.

"Good. First, do you have any idea how much you worried us? Whatever were you doing in Voldemort's headquarters to begin with?

Despite his lingering fatigue, Snape was interested as well. "Not to put too fine a point on it, Potter," he said, "you did give me several minutes of acute anxiety, and I also am curious as to why."

In spite of, or maybe because of, his emotional drain and physical exhaustion, Harry laughed. "Acute anxiety," he giggled. "That's one way of putting it." He look earnestly at Dumbledore. "I didn't plan it, really I didn't. I wanted to help, and Professor Snape was kind enough to let me go almost to Death Eater headquarters and be the one to retrieve his wand after he apparated there. He didn't want to have it on him when he was captured. I guess because Voldemort would have recognized it."

" I would say that is a fair assumption," Dumbledore commented.

"Then I came back here, and we all waited. That whole day, there was no word, nothing. The others – Professor McGonagall, Mr. Moody, Professor Lupin – they all pretended that it was perfectly normal, but I could see they were worried. Then the whole second day passed, and we still had nothing. That was when I could tell that Mr. Moody was really nervous. I think he has someone inside, and it bothered him that that person couldn't get a message out. That evening Professor Lupin said it particularly worried him that even if Professor Snape needed help, they couldn't get to him because they didn't know where Death Eater headquarters was. I thought about that all night, and it occurred to me that I had Professor Snape's wand, and that the last spell he'd cast with the wand was to apparate close to their headquarters. So I decided to use the wand to find headquarters."

Snape and Dumbledore exchanged an appreciative glance. "That was quite ingenious, Harry," said Dumbledore. "I take it that it did not occur to you to tell anyone what you were doing."

"I was afraid they'd stop me, and I wanted to do something. I used the wand, and I got to the street. I hid behind a wall and watched, and sure enough, a while later a couple of people disappeared right in front of my eyes. I was going to leave, but someone saw me and they caught me. Voldemort was really curious why I would have Professor Snape's wand and…"

"Yes," said Snape. "It would have been nearly impossible to block him out at that point."

"I did what you told me to, though. I concentrated on how much I hated you. I managed to stay focused on that. It was kind of… easy."

"I could tell."

"It may have all been for the best," said Dumbledore. "I do sometimes like to believe in fate. "Look at what we have – everything we wanted in a way we had not planned. The Horcruxes are destroyed. The soul fragment has been removed from Harry and destroyed without permanent harm to Harry. Luna and Neville were rescued. You, Severus, are safe, and I no longer have any grounds for making you go back… All very satisfactory up to this point."

"Potter," Snape said suddenly. "How did they take you into headquarters?"

"They cast a binding curse on me and put some kind of hood on my head so I couldn't see. Then they picked me up and carried me in."

Snape smiled, a curiously ironic little smile. "You do know what that means, sir. It means we have someone not bound by the Fidelius charm who knows where headquarters is."

Lunchtime came, and it was driven home to Snape in a rather forceful manner that he no longer had the use of either of his arms. "How am I supposed to eat that?" he demanded petulantly of Madam Pomfrey. "My right hand is immobile and my left hand is too weak, and besides under the best of circumstances I'm not left-handed."

"I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill," snapped Pomfrey. "Stop wallowing in self-pity."

"Look, I've just been through three miserable days, I hurt, and I'm hungry. You'd think all that medical training could be put to use. Bedside manner and everything, you know."

"Would you like some baby food? It's light weight and you wouldn't have to cut it or anything."

"I'm going to introduce you to the Dark Lord. You'd make a great couple. You both love to torment me."

"Stop complaining and pick up the fork. The exercise will do you good."

Hermione, Luna, and Neville came visiting just then, and Pomfrey left them alone. "Oh," said Luna. "We didn't have a chance before to thank you for coming to get us, and we wanted to know if there was something we could do, but I see it's mealtime. We could come back later."

"That's all right," said Snape. "I can't eat it anyway." He lifted his bandaged arms. Which led to Hermione and Luna taking turns feeding him forkfuls of chicken, mashed potato, salad, and cake, something that Snape quickly decided he could easily get used to.

Lupin came in later in the afternoon. "Pomfrey says you're not to have too many visitors. She's afraid that mark put too great a strain on your system, and it's going to hit you before long."

"She's like a prison warden. I feel fine."

"Fine must be a relative term," said Lupin, nodding at the bandages. "Not even a twinge?"

"Well, a little. But isn't that to be expected?"

"I would play it up. Make Pomfrey think you're miserable. You don't want to make an appearance now."

"Why not? What's wrong."

Lupin pulled a very straight face. "You're quite the hero. Nearly the entire staff was out there when you and Harry came in, and it's generally rumored that if it hadn't been for you, none of the students would've made it back."

"I wouldn't say that was totally inaccurate," said Snape blandly.

"Molly Weasley's knitting you a sweater."

"You can't be serious!"

"Magenta. With a chartreuse S on the front."

"The woman is insane. Tell Pomfrey I just had a relapse."

As it turned out, the relapse was real, and for two days Snape was horribly ill. He had headaches, a fever, and his stomach would hold no food. The wound on his right arm kept rejecting Pomfrey's attempts to regrow skin, and it burned and itched infuriatingly.

The third day was a Sunday, and Snape felt very much better, but Pomfrey insisted he stay in bed for another week, with few visitors, no disturbing conversations, and gradually increasing exercise until he was once again steady on his feet.

The following Sunday was the twenty-sixth of April, and Dumbledore came into the hospital wing relatively early. "Are you ready for the big ordeal?" he asked, smiling benignly.

"What ordeal?"

"You have to get it over with sometime, you know, and doing it all at once and once for all is much easier in the long run than stretching it out over time. I did it ten days ago."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your first appearance before the school. They are all down there having late Sunday breakfast, the Order of the Phoenix has taken up residence and is there, too. Come down and eat with us. Madam Pomfrey says you are well enough."

"In front of all those people?"

"Ah, but they are people in the middle of eating a hearty and delicious meal. They will notice you for a few minutes, and then they will return their wholehearted attention back to the food. After that, you will be old news. Come, Severus, join me at breakfast."

Snape agreed, though reluctantly, and found that Hagrid was waiting just outside the hospital doors. "In case you start feeling dizzy or somewhat," he said. It was harder managing the stairs than Snape had realized it would be, for he couldn't grasp the railing. Here Hagrid was quite useful, offering balance and support. At last they were in the entrance hall.

Dumbledore entered the Hall first, saying nothing, but pausing just after passing the Slytherin table so they would walk between Slytherin house and Ravenclaw to the high table. As Dumbledore began to slowly cross the length of the Great Hall, Snape fell in after him, the great bulk of Hagrid behind at his right shoulder, at first obscuring Snape's presence. Then the murmurs started.

Gryffindor started it – or rather Harry started it, springing to his feet and jumping first onto the bench and then onto the table. He said nothing, but began clapping his hands together with all his strength. Ron was up beside him, Hermione, Neville and Ginny, too, and from the Ravenclaw table Luna set up a wild ululation. The entire hall, after a moment of shocked silence burst into applause and cheers, Slytherin louder than any of the other houses.

The teachers were applauding, too, and McGonagall moved from her seat at Dumbledore's right hand to make way for Snape. Not knowing what to say, Snape said nothing. Instead he bowed to the Hall, first to Slytherin, then to Gryffindor, then to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, noting with some amusement that Luna was doing an energetic Indian war dance in the back of the hall. Then he sat down.

Dumbledore spoke briefly. "Thank you all for your warm welcome of a colleague, a member of Hogwarts's family, who richly deserves all our thanks. We must remember, however, that Professor Snape is still convalescing and not tire him too much. I bid you all enjoy this excellent breakfast."

The hall settled down and set to eating. And Dumbledore was right. After that, Snape was old news.

As people ceased paying attention to him, Snape relaxed more and, with the help of Dumbledore and Hagrid on either side of him, took scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and other food that he did not have to cut or could eat from his hand.

"What are your plans?" Dumbledore asked after a while. "Have you been thinking?"

"Plans? I have no plans. I consider that your job now."

"Well, I was thinking more of afterwards. You are rather out of the middle of things at this point."

"There's nothing I want. Except… I'd like to see him die."

Dumbledore put the forkful of food very calmly into his mouth and chewed slowly. When he was finished, he said, "You will not be there."

"That not withstanding, I'd like to see him die. I want to know he's gone."

"I fully understand, but I cannot permit you to be there."

"Do you intend to stop me?" Snape was eating slowly and deliberately, as if they were discussing the weather.

"Would you disobey a direct order?"

"You seem to be under the assumption that I still work for you."

Another pause as Dumbledore cut a piece of meat. "Has the decision been made, or is it still negotiable?" Snape didn't answer, so Dumbledore continued. "I have risked your life too much. I will not risk it again."

"It isn't for you to decide whether or not I have an appointment in Samara."

"You have suddenly become fatalistic. May I ask why?"

Snape put his fork down, leaned back, and rubbed his temple with his left hand. "Do you know why I'm alive today, sir? Not because of my careful planning or my ready wit. Not because of my courage or ability to withstand pain. I'm alive this moment because when I was nine my mother beat the shit out of me."

"Ah, yes. The students mentioned that. Luna was greatly impressed. She… ahem… asked me if it was true that I had done it. That I consider a product of your ready wit."

Snape changed the subject somewhat. "What are you planning to do that doesn't include me?"

"I cannot tell you. You do not work for me anymore." Snape glared at Dumbledore, but refused to press for more information, so Dumbledore had to let the matter drop. This time he changed the subject. "I have decided to let the students go into Hogsmeade this afternoon. Will you be going, too?"

"Is that wise? Isn't it dangerous?"

"Voldemort is lying very low since he lost you and Harry – and his last Horcrux. He is most likely doing some careful planning himself. We have all the teachers, the Order is here, the townspeople are alerted. It seems an opportunity for one last excursion."

Snape didn't go, and neither did Neville or Luna. Instead they and Professor Flitwick worked out a way to play fourhanded cribbage. It turned out to be quite amusing since Luna kept losing track of where her single peg had been, and after the third time the others began accusing her of doing it on purpose in order to sneak in more points. Then Flitwick forgot he wasn't supposed to peg in Neville's row, which led to more confusion about whose peg had been where. Snape himself had a terrible time one-handed, and Luna had to shuffle for him.

They were starting on the fourth game when Ron walked into the Great Hall. "Hey," he said, walking over to them quickly and addressing Snape. "How'd you get up here so fast?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Weasley. I've been here all afternoon."

"No you haven't. You've been down in the Three Broomsticks with us. Well, not you exactly, but you know…" Ron finished as he gestured up and down at Snape's robes.

Snape stared at Ron blankly, and then it hit. "The Polyjuice pills! There's a Death Eater in Hogsmeade disguised as Russell Moody!"

"I'll get Dumbledore!" Flitwick cried, as they jumped to their feet and raced for the door.

"Weasley, you get McGonagall," Snape ordered, heading outside.

Behind him Luna had climbed onto a table and was yelling at the students, mostly first and second years, who were in the Hall, "There're Death Eaters in Hogsmeade. Any of you know how to fight? Come with us!"

Snape had already started down the hill as excited students began to exit the castle, but he was not first. In front of him, outpacing them all, ran Neville Longbottom.

Neville was not the only one outpacing Snape. One does not with impunity overexert a weakened system, and he was quickly exhausted, his heart pounding, his breathing rapid, and dizzy to boot. Students pounded past down the hill, and then Snape dropped to the ground, sitting quietly on the grass with his left hand to his mouth wondering if he was going to be sick.

Dumbledore paused in his rush to Hogsmeade, laying a hand on Snape's shoulder and looking into his eyes. "You will be all right," he said. "I shall send Hagrid." Then he was gone.

So Snape didn't see, though he heard about it later, how Neville rushed through Hogsmeade, thinking only of Harry and Voldemort, and calling out "Death Eater – the inn!" to teachers as he passed. And how Neville burst through the door of the Three Broomsticks, to the shock of the patrons, located Harry, Hermione, and Ginny in a glance, drew his wand and screamed "Stupefy!" at 'Russ' sitting at the table with them, before anyone else had a chance to jump to their feet.

The bolt of red light, driven by Neville's rage, lifted 'Russ' from his chair and flung him into a neighboring table, sending plates of food and tankards of butterbeer flying in all directions. Hermione shrieked, "No!" and hurried to the side of the fallen 'Russ' while Ginny rounded on Neville. Harry just stood, staring from Neville to 'Russ' with comprehension beginning to dawn on his face.

"What did you do that for!" Ginny yelled at Neville. "He's sick. He just wanted to relax a little. We were going to take him to the edge of town for some fresh air." She stopped, suddenly realizing that the crowd of students outside the Three Broomsticks was too large and had gathered too quickly to be the result of Neville's spell.

The door opened and Dumbledore entered. "I see things are already well in hand," he said calmly. "Well done, Mr. Longbottom. Are the rest of you all right? Good. Let us see what we have here. If you will permit me, Miss Granger. And do not fret, Professor Snape is still on the grounds of Hogwarts. Which reminds me, would someone find Hagrid and ask him to see to Severus?"

Kneeling beside 'Russ,' Dumbledore turned him over and looked into the unconscious face. "I wonder who he is," he murmured. "We should find out in a few hours. Here, Professor Flitwick, would you see that our guest is taken to the hospital wing and made comfortable."

Flitwick conjured a stretcher and levitated 'Russ' onto it. Dumbledore turned to Harry and his friends. "And would you please go join Mr. Weasley in my office. I need to find out from you exactly what this person wanted. Now," and Dumbledore's voice grew louder, "if all students would kindly return to the castle. We do not know what will happen in the near future, and it would be best to be safe. Teachers… prefects… kindly instruct everyone to go back to Hogwarts."

Hagrid found Snape still sitting on the grass beside the path that led up the hill, his head resting on his drawn up knees. "Mind if I join ya?" Hagrid said, easing himself to the ground next to Snape and launching into an account of what had just happened in Hogsmeade.

"That's good, at least," Snape said when Hagrid was finished. He raised his head and looked down the hill. "I wonder who he is." A procession was coming through the gate, Flitwick and his stretcher at the head. "I'd better get up and try to make it to the castle. Hagrid, do you think I'll ever be well again?"

Hagrid stood and, unable to pull Snape to his feet by either of his arms, stood behind him, put his arms around Snape's body under the shoulders and lifted. "Ya mean are ya going t' be able t' run around like ya used to? I don't know. You ain't getting younger, lad. Give a year or so and ya'll be pushing forty."

Snape grimaced. "You have an uncanny knack for making me feel worse when you're supposed to be sympathizing."

"Oh. Is that what I was supposed t' be doing? Ya might've told me."

Hermione hurried a little ahead of the crowd, a smile on her face. "You are all right," she grinned. "I was a little worried when Neville slammed you into that table. I mean…"

"I understand what you mean, Miss Granger, and thank you for you concern. If you would accompany us and fill us in on what just happened…"

The three walked slowly for Snape's sake and were overtaken and passed by Flitwick and a large part of the school on the way as Hermione retold what Hagrid had already passed on and added what Hagrid had not known. By the time they got to the entrance hall, Snape had a thorough picture of the action.

Dumbledore came up behind them then. "Severus, it is good to see you on your feet. Are you well enough to join me? I should like you of all people to be beside me in the hospital when the Polyjuice wears off."

"Certainly, Headmaster," said Snape, and he, Hagrid, and Hermione followed Dumbledore upstairs.

The conversation with the four students in Dumbledore's office revealed little that was surprising. 'Russ' had joined them outside the Three Broomsticks and said he'd decided to come into Hogsmeade after all, despite being a little tired. They'd had a pleasant time, though 'Russ' hadn't talked much, then Ron had left for the castle and 'Russ' started to act ill, eventually suggesting they walk towards the outskirts of town where it was quieter and less crowded. They'd just decided to go as soon as they finished their butterbeers when Neville ran in and stunned 'Russ.'

"Clearly Voldemort knows you are still alive," Dumbledore said to Snape.

"I don't see why he wouldn't, said McGonagall. "We were still fighting in Hogsmeade while you were working on him. I'm sure some of them saw that you'd managed to save him."

"True, Minerva, true. I am concerned that they not only knew Severus was up and about, they also knew we were having a Hogsmeade excursion today. It might mean a spy in our midst, you know."

At that moment a student came with a message from Pomfrey that the prisoner's agitation was a sign of pending metamorphosis. They left Dumbledore's office and went to the hospital wing.

It was fascinating for Snape to watch a face he had come to regard as his own changing into someone else. The transformation was, he knew from experience, unpleasant but not painful. It wasn't long before they were confronted with a short, mousey-haired wizard with a bland, almost characterless face – not the popular image of a Death Eater at all.

"Bennett!" said Snape cheerfully. "How nice to see you again!"

Bennett clearly didn't share this feeling, for even though restrained in one of the hospital beds, he tried to turn away from Snape. Specifically, he tried to turn his eyes away.

"That's not going to help, Bennett," Snape told him, still keeping the friendly tone in his voice. "There are other people in this room far better at that than I am."

"I see you know this gentleman, Severus." Dumbledore was all politeness. "Kindly introduce us."

"Forgive me, sir. Where are my manners? This is, obviously, Bennett – I fear I don't know your first name. He works in supply. Mostly storage and inventory, I think. I understand he's good with memory charms." And not much else, was how Yaxley had put it, but Snape felt that didn't need to be mentioned just yet. "Bennett, this is Professor Dumbledore."

"Welcome to Hogwarts, Bennett," said Dumbledore, "though I fear we are not meeting under the best of circumstances."

"How is dear Bella these day?" Snape asked suddenly, and Bennett winced. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows as Snape continued. "Was it Bella who suggested you for this little assignment? Not as a reward, perhaps, but more likely because you're, how shall I put it, expendable? Especially to Bella. Bennett, you see," Snape explained, "was the unfortunate soul who purchased a little box with the Black family crest from Mundungus Fletcher, thereby incurring Bella's ire and incidentally showing us where to find the Dark Lord's locket Horcrux so that we could destroy it."

"No!" Bennett gasped. "I didn't do that!"

"No? Shall we lay the evidence before the Dark Lord, or even better before Bella, and let them decide? I know, let's act as if you've just told us something important and see how long it takes before that mark on your arm starts hurting."

"Severus! Enough!" the tone of anger in Dumbledore's voice was daunting, and Snape was quiet. He was content, however, for Bennett's rising agitation showed that Snape's ploy had been successful.

"You can't do that to me! You can't let him think that! He'd kill me! It would be murder!"

Snape couldn't resist, his voice silky. "But you've failed. You're dead already."

"Severus! Do I have to ask you to leave this room?"

"No! No! He's right. I failed. I've been captured. They all know it. He's going to kill me!"

"But he has not killed you yet. He is waiting to find out what will happen. It gives us time to think about this." Dumbledore looked at Bennett. "How did you know the students would be in Hogsmeade today?"

Bennett didn't answer.

Snape leaned forward, his left hand touching Dumbledore's arm in a request not to be stopped. "I have Veritaserum, Bennett. Now I know that at this moment the Dark Lord cannot hear or see any of us, but I suspect he might be able to feel Veritaserum in your veins through the mark on your arm. Shall we experiment?"

Bennett began to talk after that, but it was quickly noticed that his singing voice improved in Snape's absence, something that any student at Hogwarts could have told Dumbledore, Snape's personal presence generally conceded to be the most intimidating thing about Hogwarts.

Hagrid took Snape in hand and guided him down the stairs, out onto the lawn, and down to Hagrid's hut where Snape relaxed at the table, head on his left arm, while Hagrid fixed tea.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, then Snape asked Hagrid, "Do you have any plans?"

"Intending t' stay on here, I am, that is if everything turns out all right, which it looks like it might now. Got my home, my jobs – taking care of the grounds and teaching – got Grawp and get t' see Olympe from time t' time. It ain't a grand life, but it ain't bad." They sipped their tea awhile, then Hagrid asked, "You?" He sat back, nursing his huge cup, knowing the answer could be some time coming.

After a bit, Snape said, "It's funny, but I don't even know if I have a job. Slughorn has Potions and may want to keep it. If everything turns out all right, Lupin may be able to teach Dark Arts another year."

"I'm sure Dumbledore could find ya something."

"You make me sound like a charity case. Besides…"

Hagrid waited, then nudged. "Besides what?"

"O Hagrid, I hate teaching."

"I… er… had sort of got that impression."

"You want to know something ironic?"

"If you mean funny surprising, sure."

"Do you know the job I really liked? I mean I enjoyed being there, and enjoyed the work." Hagrid didn't answer because he knew it wasn't really expected of him. "It was my laboratory at headquarters. I loved working there."

"There's that word again."

"Yes, the addition problem. Let's see…" Snape ticked them off on his fingers. "It was clean. It was quiet. It was organized. I controlled who came in and who stayed out. I controlled when I started, when I finished, and whether or not I left in the middle. I enjoyed the work itself. It was work I was good at. It was work that was useful to people."

"Sounds like the perfect job for you. I couldn't stick inside so much every day."

"And I'm useless in a forest. Each to his own, Hagrid. Each to his own."

"Couldn't ya find somewhat like that after, well, after this is all over?"

"Where?"

"Don't know. The Ministry might have…"

"Me? Work for the Ministry of Magic? I'd rather go to Azkaban."

"What about St. Mungo's? They could use potions makers, couldn't they? You're a fair healer. Or set up yer own apothecary shop." The bleak look on Snape's face seemed to worry Hagrid. "Look, Professor, if worst comes t' worst and ya can't find a place here, ya could travel for a while."

The idea had some appeal. "I could, couldn't I? I could go back to California – Carmel-by-the-Sea, Sausalito… Or someplace entirely different – New Zealand, the Caribbean…"

"Ya might find another lady friend, ya know."

"I didn't find her Hagrid. She found me. Or rather, she was assigned to me. By Bella."

"Sorry. I didn't know."

"That's all right. She was a good person. And it wasn't just an assignment. She enjoyed her work. Some days more than others. She taught me a lot."

Hagrid grinned and slapped Snape on the shoulder. "So it were like that, were it?"

"Hagrid! I didn't mean…" but of course he did. Snape was aware he was beginning to blush. "I think I'd better go back to the castle now. See what's happening with our prisoner."

"Thanks for coming down and chatting," said Hagrid, making a mental note to talk to Dumbledore.

Snape reached the entrance hall as large numbers of students poured down staircases and emerged from dungeons to go to supper in the Great Hall. A very large number of them nodded and said, "Good evening, Professor." It was odd.

He took his time going up to the hospital wing, having already had the one experience of overtiring himself through too much exertion. Dumbledore was still with Bennett, as were McGonagall, Moody, Lupin, and Harry. The others had left, whether to go to supper or earlier, Snape didn't know.

"Come in, come in, Severus," said Dumbledore with a smile. "Sit down. Your colleague Mortimer has told us some interesting things, not least about your place in the Bella Lestrange/Lucius Malfoy power struggle."

"Has he?" replied Snape, glowering at Bennett, who quailed before him.

"Yes. An absolutely splendid job of fence-sitting, I thought. Do you not agree, Minerva."

"Breathtaking," McGonagall responded, with the fervor usually reserved for a dentist's waiting room.

"It seems, and do correct me if I am wrong, Mortimer, that Voldemort – oh, I am sorry, I shall try to be more careful – that he spent some days experimenting with the different pills and how long they lasted, and seemed particularly upset that this had been a job assigned to you at headquarters. It appears he feels he should have the patent rights."

"I grieve for his deeply felt sense of injustice."

"There, you see, Mortimer. I told you Severus would understand. They were concerned that they had a limited number of the pills, but Mortimer has spent a couple of hours each day for the past four days trying to find out about student movements. He was fortunate this morning to learn of the excursion and to pass that information back to You-Know-Who in Birmingham."

Snape stared at Dumbledore, feeling the blood drain from his face, his heartbeat and respiratory rate increase, and sudden lightheadedness compel him to grip the side of his chair. A glance told him that Bennett was having a similar response to the naming of headquarters' location.

"Fascinating, the physical reaction," said Dumbledore, looking from one to the other. "Harry told me where it was. Pointed out the street on a map. He was there long enough to look at the street signs, you see. We could go there right now, though only you two would be able to see or enter the building. At any rate, Mortimer waited until he saw Harry enter the Three Broomsticks, then a bit later went in to sit with him. He said he wanted to move around a bit outside the castle. The plan was to get Harry outside Hogsmeade where he could be overpowered and taken to… well, you know."

"I have a question for Bennett, sir. Why on earth did they choose you to impersonate me?"

Bennett looked embarrassed. "They didn't at first. One of the problems was that none of them could impersonate you. Two minutes of conversation would be all anyone would need. They chose me because I could keep quiet. The Dark Lord was certain you'd still be very ill. He said a man in your condition wouldn't talk much, and then it would be short and quiet. So Mrs. Lestrange suggested me."

"An acceptable answer," said Snape.

"I now have," said Dumbledore, "several important concerns, the first being to lure Volde… ahem… Well, why not? Voldy… out of headquarters into a trap. Hush, Severus. I understand your worry, but Mortimer and I have already discussed this He is quite anxious to put an end to this business, too.

"My second concern is for the welfare of Mortimer. His mark is nearly three years old and deeply rooted. I do not wish to force him to endure what you have endured. There is also the question of sparing his life and the lives of his wife and children. I estimate we have until morning. If we can devise some way to send him back so that he is protected from Voldy's mind probes, and at the same time can still assist us, that would be perfect."

"I see, sir. What did you have in mind?"

"I, Severus? Why do you think I employ you? I am the philosopher. I invent grand schemes and analyze their intellectual impact on the universe, and I read hearts and souls – it is what I am good at – but there are times when I place too much reliance on the words of the medieval mystic who said, 'And all will be well, and all will be well, and all good things will be well.' You are my planner, my plotter, the chap with the train timetables and the stopwatch. Right now I look to you."

Snape stared blankly at Dumbledore. He had no ideas at all, but Dumbledore and the others kept expecting him to pull rabbits out of hats. And yet if they didn't have a plan worked out by morning, Bennett would die, and they would be no nearer to flushing the Dark Lord out of his hole.

He contemplated Bennett, remembering the first time he'd ever noticed the timid little man, sitting in a corner of the cafeteria just before Yaxley played his joke. Snape could even hear Yaxley's voice saying …and not much else… and then he had it. He had the idea.

"Bennett," Snape asked, "can you cast a memory spell on yourself?"

"I don't know," Bennett stammered. "I've never thought about it before."

"Talk to me, Severus," said Dumbledore. "Think out loud. We need everything in place by morning, so we all have to be in on it."

"First, we have Bennett's problem. If I were a fellow Death Eater giving him advice, I would tell him to obliviate all memory of the Polyjuice pills and the operation in Hogsmeade before you started questioning him. Then you could do anything to him, but he wouldn't be able to give you information. That is," Snape turned to Bennett, "if you're as good at memory charms as Yaxley said you were."

Bennett nodded. "I could do that," he said.

"Then we could fake an interrogation. The only problem for Bennett is that after the Obliviate charm, he would have to see the interrogation as real in order to deceive the Dark Lord's probe. So it would be very unpleasant for him – it would have to be in order to work. But he would be safe from the Dark Lord's worst vengeance, and maybe even commended in the end for his ingenuity."

Bennett was nodding again, more emphatically this time. However unpleasant the interim might be, he was heartened at the idea that there really was a way out of his difficulty.

Dumbledore was less heartened. "Very well, our responsibilities towards Mortimer can be fulfilled. That is a good thing, and if we achieve nothing else, it is worth doing for its own sake, but Severus, have you nothing up your sleeve for me?"

"Your problem, sir, is access to the Dark Lord. You must either get him to come out, or you must be able to go in. Now that his Horcruxes have been destroyed, he'll be much more reluctant to come out, even if you dangle Potter as bait. So you must go in."

"I am sure you will explain to me how this can be done."

"We already know how it can be done. It was done with Luna, Neville, and Harry. Someone with the secret can carry or lead someone without the secret. We have nine."

"Nine!" shrieked Bennett.

"Counting you, of course. And me. You didn't think we were going to send you in to be a lone warrior in a den of lions, did you? Forgive me, Bennett, but you're not the type."

"We have eight, Severus. Possibly only seven. You are not going in, and someone has to be inside all the time."

"Excuse me, sir. You have one, and only one, Death Eater that the Dark Lord can't control from a distance. You have to use me."

"I shall muddle through. It is probable that confronted by an attack and having to control several at once rather than concentrating on just one will diminish Voldy's power. You have risked too much, and you are not in top condition. You will not argue. Now continue."

"Yes, sir. Bennett, you tell me if any of this can't be done. We have to work out the whole attack this evening. We give it, with contact names, to Bennett, who locks it deep inside in a way that it can only be retrieved with a code word or phrase. Before he hears the phrase, Bennett remembers nothing. After he hears the phrase, the whole thing comes back. One of our other people just needs to know the phrase. The Dark Lord won't find it because it would never occur to him to look for it."

"I marvel that it occurred to you."

"I read. I go to movies. You'd be surprised what muggles come up with. Charles Bronson and Donald Pleasence… Sorry. Now this is where it gets tricky. Bennett then obliviates all memory that he had this conversation, or that he's working for us. Basically, the last couple of hours never happened."

"This will not erase the hidden memory?"

"It shouldn't. With me so far, Bennett?" Bennett nodded. "Good, because what comes next will be hardest on you. You won't remember that it's meant to help you or that you agreed to it. It would be easier if you retained a small amount of trust in me as a Death Eater, but that might not be possible.

"I, as unwilling and coerced servant of Dumbledore, will tell you how to escape Dumbledore's mind probes. To make my motives more convincing, sir, you would have to pretend to punish me as well. The Dark Lord loves the idea that you're really a tyrant, and would savor the images. Unable to get Bennett here to talk, we dump him outside the gate in the morning. Bennett stays at headquarters believing in the reality of the 'interrogation' until he hears the code phrase that sets the plan in motion."

Everyone looked at Bennett. "I think I could do that," he squeaked.

For the next two hours they planned, and as they talked, Snape outlined, added, rearranged and refined the sequence of things Bennett would have to do, all seemingly quite innocuous, to prepare for the invasion of headquarters.

"How do you do that?" Moody asked.

"It's easy," Snape answered. "Once you establish the goal, you just work out the steps to get there."

"And what is our goal here?"

"To have as few Death Eaters as possible inside headquarters when we enter."

"When this is over, Albus," said Moody, "can I buy him from you? Name your price."

"He is not for sale," said Dumbledore gently. "And Severus, you mean when we enter."

"That's what I said."

"Your 'we' includes yourself. My 'we' does not."

After going over the plan several times, Bennett got ready for the first memory charm. Snape had wanted the code phrase to be 'We are go for launch' but ran into problems.

"Should that not be 'We are going for lunch,' Severus?" Dumbledore said.

"It's launch, sir. Not lunch. Go for launch."

"And what if someone says it accidentally – 'Come on, Mortimer, join us. We are going for lunch.' – and Mortimer starts the attack prematurely?"

"'Go for launch.' It's about rockets…" Eventually Snape settled for 'Ignition sequence started,' which he guaranteed no Death Eater would say accidentally.

Bennett performed the spell, and Dumbledore checked his mind. There was no trace of the hidden plan. Then everyone left the hospital wing except Snape, who remained with Bennett. Another spell, and Bennett forgot everything between the Three Broomsticks and that moment. It was as if he'd just woken up. The play had begun.

"Bennett. Bennett, are you awake?"

"You! You're the traitor!"

"Shh. Don't make any noise. They'll be here in a minute. You have to act fast to protect the Dark Lord."

"Get away from me." Bennett, too, was talking in a whisper now. "You want me to betray the Dark Lord. I won't do it. He'll kill me."

"Do you think you can keep Dumbledore out? Listen to me. Just listen. If it sounds wrong to you, don't do it." Bennett turned his head away. Snape kept talking. "I can't escape. He uses Imperius curses and… other things. Look, I can show you." Snape held Bennett's head so their eyes met and projected the image of Dumbledore torturing him with a Cruciatus curse. The image was three years old, and Snape had asked Dumbledore to do it, but Bennett didn't need to know.

Bennett was shaking. "What can I do?" he pleaded.

"Yaxley told me you were good with memory charms. Can you remove all memory of why you were in Hogsmeade from your mind, so Dumbledore can't see it? That way you can't betray the Dark Lord."

Bennett nodded, hope returning, and performed the spell. On cue, Dumbledore, Moody, and Lupin entered. Snape cowered before them like a beaten slave. It was an image the Dark Lord would particularly relish, distracting him from other things.

The next few hours were difficult. In order to convince Voldemort that what happened was real, Bennett had to believe it was real. They relied mostly on threats and intimidation, though it was impossible to avoid inflicting some pain, or it would not be believable. Dumbledore kept it to a minimum, with spells that would cause no permanent damage. Luckily, Bennett had no experience with interrogations, and would remember his mild questioning as more severe than it was. Particularly effective was Dumbledore's treatment of Snape, who was 'punished' for trying to mitigate Bennett's torment, a punishment that had him writhing on the floor, crying out in agony.

None of it could break Bennett, for Bennett had no memory of the Hogsmeade incident whatsoever.

With dawn, they dragged Bennett down to the gate, bound with restraining spells, and dumped him there to be taken back to Voldemort by the Death Eaters they knew were hovering around the town.

As they walked back up the hill, Moody said to Snape, "That was quite a performance."

"A good actor always draws on his own experience," Snape replied.

Snape went directly to the hospital wing where an irate Madam Pomfrey checked him thoroughly and sent him to bed. "And," she stated emphatically, "Albus is going to get a piece of my mind, keeping you up all night and running you ragged. Is he trying to kill you?"

It wasn't a point Snape wanted to debate, or a question he wanted to answer. He rather gratefully followed Madame Pomfrey's orders and, with the help of a mild sedative, slept until noon.

"You have a visitor," was Pomfrey's announcement as she brought Snape lunch.

The one who stuck his head around the privacy screen was Neville. "Do you mind?" he asked.

"Not at all. I wasn't doing anything special. As long as you don't mind my eating."

Neville held up a sandwich. "I brought my lunch with me."

Both were silent for a while as they ate, then Neville asked, "Are you going in after him?"

"Why? Has someone mentioned something?"

"No. It's just that I thought maybe that Death Eater told you something."

"He told us several things, not all of them useful." Snape watched Neville's face for a moment, noting the look of dejection. "And if it's any consolation to you, when and if they do 'go in,' I won't be there."

"No? Why not?"

"For some inexplicable reason, Professor Dumbledore has suddenly decided my life is too precious to risk."

"That's what he told us, too. We all want to fight, but they'll only allow Harry to go."

"From what I heard, you already struck a blow."

Neville nodded. "It felt good," he said, "but it wasn't who I wanted."

"I'd like to sink my teeth into Bella Lestrange myself," Snape responded.

"How did you know it was her?"

"Barty's gone, effectively, Rodolphus and Rabastan are still in Azkaban. Who else would it be?"

"Professor, what did she do to you?"

Snape sighed. "The only thing I'm sure of is that she gave the Dark Lord my name as a potential Death Eater and led the effort to recruit me. I was twelve at the time."

Neville's eyes widened. "What's the thing you're not sure of?"

"My last living relative, my grandmother, was killed by muggles under an Imperius curse. I think the one who located her for the Dark Lord was Bella's sister Narcissa. So I suspect Bella had something to do with it."

"She killed your gran? I don't know what I'd do if my gran died." There was another long pause. "Professor," Neville said at last, and his voice was almost a whisper, "I know you wanted me to be the Chosen One because of Harry's mum. Was that why were you always so mean to me?"

Snape's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but Neville was looking doggedly at the floor and didn't see. As the silence lengthened, Neville seemed to visibly shrink. Then Snape spoke. "That was the principal reason. Frankly, I hated the sight of you."

The answer seemed to give Neville more confidence. "Why?" he demanded.

Bending his head back, Snape stared at the ceiling, then returned his gaze to Neville. "It should have been you," he said. "I gave the Dark Lord part of a prophecy that pointed to you. It was perfect – a pureblood baby and an auror's child as well. He should have gone after you instead of Lily's baby. Even when Potter was born the next day, it was still questionable which of you the prophecy meant. He chose Potter. For years I clung to the hope that the Dark Lord made a mistake, because otherwise I was responsible for Lily's death. When you came to Hogwarts, I wanted to see a strong, talented wizard… To prove the Dark Lord wrong."

"And I'm a step away from a squib. I understand." The interesting thing was that the boy did understand, and somehow it made him feel better.

"You're a talented herbologist, and a competent potions maker." Snape paused. "I imagine you would be suited to a potion maker's wand. I happen to have one upstairs. Would you like to try it?"

Together they snuck out of the hospital wing and went to Dumbledore's office, where Snape looked through his things and found the juniper wand with the mistletoe root that he'd stolen from Ollivanders. In Neville's hand, the wand vibrated with energy and anticipation. "Keep it," Snape said.

"Thank you, sir," Neville said and smiled.

The next weeks were ones of waiting. First and foremost, Dumbledore wanted to lull Voldemort into a sense of more security after the Hogsmeade incident. It took a week before a message asking about Bennett was picked up, and three more days before it was answered. The little clerk's interrogation had been brief and relatively easy. He had indeed been commended for his ingenuity.

The weekend of May 9 and 10 was not only too soon, it was the full moon. Lupin needed to be given enough time afterwards to regain his strength. An added advantage for Snape was that his health was improving, and he no longer needed the sling for his left arm. The right arm was finally healing naturally, too. Restless and frustrated, Snape began to work on his dueling skills. His co-conspirator was Flitwick.

"Let me guess," said Flitwick after a strenuous session along a section of the lake shore that was shielded from view of the castle by a projecting wall of rock. "You're not very good at chess."

"And how did you reach that brilliant conclusion," Snape panted, bending over and trying to will his heart to beat more slowly.

"The only thing you concentrate on is stalemate and retreat. You're not aggressive enough. You don't want to win duels, you want to escape from them."

"Isn't staying alive the point?"

"Sometimes winning is the point. If I was putting together a fighting force, you'd be in the rear, not the van."

"So I could run faster?"

"So you could cover my back. That's what you're good at."

"That's what the Dark Lord thought."

"Score one for him, then. He knows something about tactics."

"Are you implying then, Filius, that I do not?" Both wizards spun around in surprise, not having had any idea they were being watched, certainly not by Dumbledore.

"Maybe," Flitwick replied with a mischievous grin. "My back would feel safer if Severus was with us."

"We have discussed this. Severus is still not well. He is weak and easily winded, and he does not have even one good arm. He has already done enough and more than enough. His time is past. Now others must take up the fight."

'What you mean, sir," Snape pointed out, "is that having used me for the donkey labor, you're shutting me out of the reward. I'm not being allowed in at the kill."

"I truly must apologize to you, Filius," said Dumbledore, "but would you mind allowing me to speak to Severus in private? It appears we have something of importance to discuss." Flitwick bowed politely and left.

Snape turned his back on Dumbledore, gazing out over the placid waters of the lake. "All right, what did I do wrong this time?"

"Believe it or not," said Dumbledore, coming to stand beside him, "I am concerned about the state of your soul."

"It's about time. You weren't so concerned about it when it wasn't to your advantage."

"Because then your soul was not in danger. You did not wish me dead. What you had to do, you would do with horror, with revulsion, and with great sorrow. My life was precious to you, and you could only be brought to take it by overwhelming need. This is different. You are eager for this death. You actually wish to be present at the slaying of another person because that death will give you pleasure. I fear that at this moment your soul is in terrible danger, and I will not be a party to it."

"But you're going there to kill him. You're letting Potter go, and he's just as eager for it as I am. What about his soul?"

"I do not wish the death of Tom Riddle. If it is unavoidable, I shall grieve over what might have been as I would for any other person who erred and took the path to destruction. I take Harry because it would appear that Harry is fated to be there. Given the prophecy, I would be remiss if I did not take him. I can only pray that at the fated moment Harry, too, is grieved at what must be done. There is no prophecy about you. Not having fate to constrain me, I am free to be concerned for the welfare of your soul. You are not going."

"But what if I am fated to be there? Hagrid said we were a trio – three small, dark, skinny, muggle-raised, half-blood boys all tied together. I carried the prophecy that made Riddle choose Potter. I've been the bridge between Riddle's darkness and Potter's light nearly all my life. How can you say I'm not fated to be there?"

"Severus," said Dumbledore mildly, "on the day Sibyll Trelawney makes a prophecy about you, on that day I will allow you to accompany us."

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	20. Chapter 20 – The Unknown Power

**Bottle Fame and Brew Glory: The Unknown Power**

That afternoon, Snape sought out Harry Potter. He found him, after an hour's search, in the fountain courtyard. "I need you to tell me something," he said without preamble as he sat down on the bench next to the startled boy.

"Hullo," said Harry. "I'm fine. Thank you for asking."

"I'm serious. I need you to tell me something. Back at headquarters, just before he removed the soul fragment, the Dark Lord possessed you. What was that like?"

"Unpleasant."

"When I want meaningless generalities, I'll go to Weasley. What was it like?"

"You are serious." Harry thought for a moment. "It was just like the first time…"

"The first time?"

"Yes. He possessed me two years ago, at the end of the fight in the Department of Mysteries. He was trying to protect himself. He knew Professor Dumbledore wouldn't kill him if it meant killing me, too. It was terrible. I actually knew I was dying, and I wanted to die – anything to stop the pain. No one can live long with that kind of pain."

"But you didn't die."

"No. I started thinking that at least I'd be with Sirius, and then I started thinking about Sirius and… he left me. He couldn't take it, and he left me."

"Couldn't take it…" Snape pondered this. "'But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…' What does that mean? Does it mean he doesn't have it? Or that he doesn't understand it? Or that he doesn't recognize it? Or all three at once? Are you sure you were dying?"

"Yes. Certainly at the time I was sure. And a few weeks ago… at headquarters… I was sure then, too. If he hadn't left me, I'd have died." Harry watched Snape intensely. "This is important, isn't it?"

"Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives. It was happening then, wasn't it? When you were joined, only one of you could survive. If he was strong, you would die. When you became stronger, he was dying, and he had to break off the connection. When you thought about Sirius, would you categorize the feeling as love?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Humor me. Remember, you're talking to the emotionally challenged. If you had to put the feeling into a category, would that category be love?"

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"Powerful love?"

"Powerful? Yeah. He certainly thought so. He got out fast enough."

Leaving Harry only slightly more enlightened than he'd been at the beginning of the conversation, Snape headed to the library. There he was met with an unexpected problem.

"Dictionary!" Madam Pince screamed at him. "What kind of foul, depraved, muggle request is that! What do you mean, dictionary! Students get all the vocabulary they need from their classes. They'd only use a dictionary to look up the bad words. Who ever heard of a dictionary in the Hogwarts library!"

Snape nonetheless found a dictionary. It was old and old-fashioned. It was convoluted and obscure. It was, nonetheless, informative. Under the entry for the phrase 'at the hand of,' it had more than one definition. One, of course, clearly said, 'by the action of.' Another, however, said 'by the instrumentality of.'

_He is the instrument_, Snape thought. _Not the agent, but the instrument. It happens through him, but not because of him._

The spirit of rebellion was growing in Snape's heart.

xxxxxxxxxx

_Wednesday, May 13, 1998_

Wednesday morning, when the entire school gathered for breakfast, Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair and tapped a glass with his spoon. The clear note penetrated the Hall easily, for most of the students were still half asleep and more interested in eating than in talking. When all was still, the Headmaster rose to make his announcement.

"Boys and girls, members of the staff, it has come to my attention that today is a gloriously beautiful day. The sun is shining, the air is clear and warm, the lake water is clean and refreshing. It is no day to be surrounded by walls of stone. I am notifying everyone that classes have been suspended for the day. Today, Hogwarts has a holiday."

The house tables erupted in cheers and applause, while the staff exchanged puzzled glances. Snape wasn't the first to question Dumbledore – McGonagall had that honor – but he had started in their direction at once and was close enough to hear the answer.

"I can hardly allow classes to be held, Minerva, when a substantial portion of the teaching staff will be in London today. Better a general holiday. The children will be less likely to remark on who is here and who is not. Those who remain are sufficient for supervision."

The teachers going to London, as Snape soon found out, were McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, Lupin, and 'Switch.' Snape, much to his irritation, was not among the invited. He fumed and fretted most of the morning until McGonagall returned at eleven. She was alone.

"I," she informed Snape in high dudgeon, "have been sent out of the room. I have been excluded from the council. Me."

"You got to see and hear more than I did. What happened down there?"

"Emmeline Vance has been made secret keeper for you-know-where."

"I thought he did that two years ago. That was the whole reason we staged that little execution scene."

"I knew about that – obviously, since she's been teaching here for nearly a year." McGonagall was calming down now that it was clear she for once knew more than Snape did. "Albus kept putting the ritual off, and then being caught on the tower took him by surprise. This time he wants to be sure he's covered all eventualities."

"Then it's going to be soon."

"And there's a chance Albus will be killed. That's why he's passing the baton to Emmeline. He's chosen the team that's going with him, too. Harry, of course, and then Alastor, Kingsley, Filius, Remus, and Charlie Weasley. Arthur was terribly upset that he wasn't picked, but Albus and Molly were able to smooth his ruffled feathers and soothe his hurt feelings. At least he gets to be one of the secondary group. Hagrid, too. I've been fobbed off with the excuse that I'll be needed to take care of Hogwarts if things go wrong. That's why I'm here now. No one not in the operation is being permitted any information." McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "You know what the plan is, don't you."

"You know I can't talk about that."

"Ye can't…! And what have I just been doing? If he'd meant for ye to know what was happening in London, he'd have taken ye along! It's only tit for tat, laddie. Spill."

Snape shook his head, and that was the last he heard of what had been discussed in London. At least for the time being.

On Tuesday the nineteenth, instructions were left at Cardiff with information on how to unlock the secret Bennett was carrying. From that moment, every drop point was watched twenty-four hours a day. Two days later, late in the afternoon, Nott left the response at Norwich, but the note was in Yaxley's handwriting. Snape tried to keep the smirk off his face when Dumbledore handed him the slip of parchment with five words on it: _We are 'go' for launch._

Most of the entire Order of the Phoenix, except for Professor McGonagall, apparated to Birmingham at three-thirty the following morning. Dumbledore had allowed Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna to spend the night in his office, knowing how worried they all would be about the events of the next day. After the team from Hogwarts had departed for Birmingham, McGonagall and the students rushed to the hospital wing. They weren't disturbing anyone, for neither Pomfrey nor Snape was sleeping.

"What are they doing, Severus?" McGonagall demanded. "You can talk now. Everyone's going to know soon anyway. Albus has still refused to tell me anything."

"And Harry won't tell us." Ron added, clearly miffed at being left out.

"Harry doesn't know," said Snape. " At least not all the details. Only Dumbledore, Moody, and Lupin. Oh, and me, of course."

"Well," McGonagall said, "are you going to talk or am I going to have to beat it out of you?"

"I guess it can't hurt anything now." Snape glanced around at the eager faces. "If everything went according to plan, our friend from the Three Broomsticks – a supply and inventory supervisor, third level, no one important – went around to people in different departments telling them they would have to come in early today to help with a special shipment of… well, I think it's different things – potions ingredients, medical equipment, whatever he could think of. They've been told different times to come in, so a couple will arrive at four-thirty, a couple at four-forty-five, and so forth. As they arrive in ones and twos, they'll be immobilized and held by our people. What's inside headquarters right now is a skeleton crew."

"Won't someone notice that they're not showing up to work?" asked McGonagall.

"No, because normally they don't report until around eight. The Death Eaters on our side will come in at about seven and take our people in."

"There are Death Eaters on our side? More than one?"

"Yes, Mr. Weasley. They've been with us for some time."

"Who?"

"Yaxley, of course, and the fathers of Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott." Snape enjoyed the look of shock on all the faces staring at him. They were in for a bigger surprise. "Oh, and Lucius Malfoy, of course."

"Malfoy!" The chorus hit Snape like a tidal wave.

"Yes, Malfoy. Don't look at me like that Luna, I'm not crazy. Who do you think smuggled me your wand when we were prisoners?"

Hermione nodded. "Harry said he was the one who suggested you'd been Imperiused. He thought that was just luck. But it was really Malfoy trying to help you."

"Exactly, Miss Granger. And on two previous occasions – when we got the wand at the Tower, and when we destroyed the Horcruxes – there were Death Eaters in the group that attacked us who were trying very hard not to hurt anyone."

"That's why it was so easy."

"Partly."

"It's lucky none of our people hurt them. I don't think anyone on our side knew."

"They'll know this time. Our people will see exactly who's on their side. It's the Dark Lord who won't know."

They talked for a while longer, then McGonagall insisted that the students return to their dormitories for at least a little rest.

As they were leaving the hospital wing, Snape called after them, "Minerva, do you think Longbottom could stay here just a few minutes longer?"

"All right, Severus, but only a short while. The boy needs his rest." Neville turned and walked back toward Snape.

Snape said nothing until McGonagall was gone. Pomfrey had returned to her own room, and he and Neville were alone.

"How old are you, Longbottom?" Snape asked, though he knew the answer.

"Seventeen, sir. Almost eighteen."

"An adult. With the legal right to make your own decisions."

"Yes, sir."

"Mr. Longbottom, it has occurred to me that a terrible injustice is being committed here. More than anyone else, more even perhaps than Harry, this is your quarrel and your fight. Mr. Longbottom, I am about to disobey a direct order from Professor Dumbledore. Would you care to accompany me?"

"Would I, sir? Oh, yes, sir!"

"Do you have your wand?"

"Yes, sir!" Neville patted the pocket of his robe.

"Good. We must go quietly now. No need to disturb Professor McGonagall."

They hurried silently down the stairs and into the early summer dawn. The castle slept as they ran down the hill, but Snape steered Neville away from the gate. "We have to go out by the Shack."

They threaded their way through the tunnel, then Snape lowered the defenses on the Shack, and they apparated to Birmingham, about a half mile from headquarters. "At this point," said Snape, "you just follow me. If you spot any of our people, get down. We don't want them to see us until it's too late to stop us."

Neville just nodded.

The Order had placed spells around the neighborhood to keep muggles away from the operation, but Snape pierced the defenses so that he and Neville could slip through. They were able to get quite close, hiding behind a wall that enclosed the front area of a dingy home. From their shelter, Snape and Neville were able to see the Death Eaters that apparated in, and the ease with which they were stopped and taken prisoner. Few attempted to resist.

It was nearly a two-hour wait. Then, just before seven o'clock, the last of the Death Eaters apparated in: Malfoy, Rookwood, Avery, Nott, Yaxley, Crabbe, and Goyle.

"How many are inside?" Dumbledore asked.

"Maybe twenty, twenty-five," said Malfoy, "but quite a few of them are healers in the clinic and maintenance people. The number who might put up a fight is closer to a dozen, fifteen…"

"About the same as us, but we have the element of surprise. Where will we be going once we are inside?"

"There's a stairway on the right, going down. It leads to a corridor with waiting rooms and holding cells. At the far end is the interview chamber, and the Dark Lord's own rooms beyond."

"Who is the strongest we will be facing, after him, of course."

"Bella was there last evening. Greyback. The Carrows. There's always at least one operations squad, but no one else of Bella's power."

"It will not be easy, but I believe we can do it. We have one goal, and one goal only. That is to get to Voldemort. Nothing else that happens along the way is important. If we can destroy him, the battle is won."

Malfoy was Dumbledore's escort. Yaxley took Harry. Each of the chosen members of the Order went with a Death Eater. Blindfolds were placed over their eyes, and the escorts held their arms so they could touch nothing on the way in. Those remaining outside turned away, lest their gaze hinder the approach to the invisible building. Then, one by one, Malfoy first, they approached the place where nothing was and disappeared.

Snape made Neville cover his eyes as well. It wouldn't do to have Neville invoke the charm, though at their distance it was unlikely. When the last pair had vanished, Snape said, "Our turn now. We have to move fast. We start walking, and maybe they won't notice us at first. They're all looking in the direction of the building. You stay right behind me. When I say, 'Now,' pull your hood over your face and close your eyes. We have only one shot at this."

It worked like a charm. They strolled forward as if they were part of the operation, taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention. Then Hagrid called, "Hey! What are you doing here?"

The two broke into a run with only a dozen yards to go. Snape yelled, "Now!" and Neville threw up his hood. Spinning, Snape seized Neville in his arms and dove for the gate, the momentum carrying them through even though Snape could feel the pressure of the spell pushing on his brain. He and Neville were inside headquarters.

Snape and Neville were on their feet almost instantly, but there was no one else in the area in front of headquarters' entrance. Both drew their wands, and Snape carefully opened the door. No one was in the foyer or in the little office where the sign-in book was, but the sound of running footsteps echoed up from the stairway on their right. And from the stairs coming down from the second floor – more than one person.

Snape pushed Neville into the office, wanting to see before he was seen. "Shh," he breathed into Neville's ear as they crouched down. "Company."

The feet turned at the stairway, and Snape risked a peek. Alecto and Fenrir were rushing down the stairs. There was no other sound from above. "Come on," Snape told Neville. "They'll be hit from behind. We have to help."

He was almost at the top of the stairs when Neville screamed, "No!" Snape spun in time to cast a shield that deflected the red bolt of light, but was himself pushed backwards.

"Hello, puppy dog," cooed a sultry voice. Bella stood in the center of the foyer where the staircases came down. Amycus stood behind her, grinning. "You have no idea how pleased I am. I missed your little performance last month and thought I would never see my puppy again. And here you are, just for me." Snape, Neville behind him, was inching his way into the foyer where he would have more maneuvering room than in the short corridor by the office. Bella didn't seem to care. "And you've brought me a present from Hogwarts, how charming. You always were such a dear little thing."

The bolt of light came without warning. Neville rolled left as he'd been taught and came up with an Expelliarmus that Bella deflected easily. Snape dove right and aimed an Impedimenta at Amycus, whose shield charm was ready.

Whirling, Bella screamed, _"Incarcerous!"_ at Snape, who found himself fending off writhing, snakelike ropes that attempted to bind him. Amycus chuckled and raised his arm, but whatever curse he'd planned never made it out of his wand, for Neville shot a stinging hex at his hand, and the wand dropped to the floor.

Bella rounded on Neville then, her face losing some of its smugness. "The little baby wants to play with the grown-ups," she sneered. "We'll show it just how unwise that is." A blasting curse erupted full-force from her wand and shattered the railing of the staircase next to Neville, who scurried away from the flying slivers of wood on hands and knees. Bella advanced on Neville, a cat playing with a mouse.

Finally subduing the last of the ropes, Snape attacked Bella with an Expelliarmus that sent her wand flying into the air, but Amycus had retrieved his own wand and cried "Crucio!" Snape crumpled to the floor, for though Amycus didn't have the power of the Dark Lord, the pain was disabling.

"_Accio Wand!"_ Bella commanded, and advanced on Snape. "That was foolish, puppy dog. Now Mommy's angry," she said, and raised the wand to add the strength of her own curse to Amycus's. Snape, unable to respond, could only watch her.

Then, from the floor behind Bella, Neville shouted, _"Locomotor Mortis!"_ and Bella fell forward, her knees locked together. Amycus immediately hit Neville with an Expelliarmus, and Neville's wand shot to the other side of the foyer as Amycus spun back on Snape with a renewed Cruciatus curse. While Snape was immobilized with the pain, Amycus flicked his wand to the side and released Bella.

Furious now, Bella turned on the boy. One wave of her wrist blasted his wand into slivers, leaving Neville disarmed. "You dare attack me with your child's spells, you filthy, shivering little blood traitor. I took care of your parents, and I can do the same for you. _Crucio!"_ she shrieked, and Neville was flung onto his back, twisting and screaming in pain.

"Can't take it?" Bella mocked. "Poor little baby. Does it want to go home now? Has it decided playing with the big kids isn't fun anymore? It should have thought of that earlier." She increased the intensity of the curse, and Neville's screams rose in volume. Bella was smiling wickedly, and Amycus, amused by the scene was laughing.

With Amycus's distraction, the pain binding Snape began to recede. He was breathing hard, his heart pounding, but reaction was once again possible. Pointing his wand, he hit Amycus with a nonverbal Levicorpus, and shouted, _"Expelliarmus!"_

Amycus swung violently into the air, his wand skittering all the way across the foyer and down the entrance corridor. He began swearing and jerking his body around in mid air, but was unable to release himself or retrieve his wand. Bella left her sport with Neville to face Snape, who had struggled to his feet. Behind her, Neville lay on his side whimpering.

"So," Bella said, menace chilling her voice, "it's you and me now, isn't it? Now we get to see which of us is stronger."

But even as they circled each other, looking for an advantage, Snape knew which was stronger. His arms felt like lead weights and his body throbbed with pain. He fought dizziness, forcing himself to concentrate. His only hope was to drag this out as long as possible to keep Bella from aiding the Dark Lord in the chambers below, but this was ultimately a fight he was going to lose.

Bella attacked first, Snape being well aware that he was stronger at defense. She tried another binding spell, which he blocked with a Finite since the ropes reacted unpredictably to a Protego. Another pause, then with superb timing Bella unleashed in quick succession an Expelliarmus, a Petrificus Totalis, and a Cruciatus, the last of which Snape dove to avoid, his shields not coming fast enough.

Snape's _"Sectumsempra!"_ as he rolled to his feet took Bella by surprise. Her shield was fast, but not fast enough to avoid a slash across her face. "You dare!" she screamed, and her rage powered a stream of blasting spells that Snape had to dodge to avoid since a Protego would have bounced them back onto the semiconscious Neville moaning on the other side of the foyer.

He wasn't fast enough for the last one, and the edge of it struck his left elbow, throwing Snape against the wall. He moved quickly then, half stumbling, half crawling out of the way as Bella's _"Stupefy!"_ shot a bolt of red that crashed into the spot where Snape had just been and sprayed crimson sparks around the room.

As he dove for the floor once more, Snape twisted his body to aim a Tripping jinx that brought Bella down and gave him time to move out of her reach. Before she could rise, he shouted, _"Petrificus Totalis!"_ but she tossed it away with a wicked smile.

"Slowing down, are we?" Bella taunted. "Just a little out of practice? A little out of your league?" She fired an Impedimenta just as Snape did the same, and the percussion of the colliding spells knocked them both off their feet.

Bella was faster getting up. Before she'd fully regained her balance, she hit Snape with a _"Crucio!"_ that carried the full force of her rage. The pain slammed him in the ribs, sending waves of shock radiating through his body as his brain was surrounded by a sea of fire. Helpless now, he rolled and twisted in agony, the pain every bit as intense as any the Dark Lord had ever inflicted.

Then the pain eased, eased just enough so that he could hear Bella's voice. "The puppy dog has been a bad boy. He needs to be punished." Pain spiked again, then receded. "He needs a little more training because he hasn't learned all his lessons. The first lesson is 'Come to Mommy.' He's going to come to Mommy and kiss her feet."

Pain, fire that seemed to melt his bones, raged through Snape, then died down once more, for Bella wanted more than punishment, she wanted obedience. As Snape gasped and panted for breath, she continued to murmur, "Come to Mommy." The only other sounds in the room were the suspended Amycus's chuckling and Neville, still whimpering softly.

But Neville was doing more than whimpering. Fully awake now, and out of the range of Amycus's vision, he kept up the soft moaning as he slowly pushed himself to his knees. Taking advantage of Bella's total concentration on Snape, Neville steadied himself and reached into his robes. Juniper, ten inches, slightly flexible, mistletoe root heart – a potion maker's wand – Neville pointed it straight at Bella's back and shouted with every ounce of his strength, _"Stupefy!"_

Bella was lifted into the air and hurled face first against the opposite wall. Her wand clattered from her hand as she crumpled in a heap to the floor.

Neville stumbled over to Snape's side and knelt beside him. "Are you all right, sir?" he asked.

"Bind them," Snape gasped. "Quickly, bind them."

First straightening Bella's body a little, Neville cast body-bind curses on both her and Amycus, then for good measure bound them with ropes. He helped ease Amycus to the ground when Snape released the Death Eater with a Liberacorpus. Then he returned to Snape's side.

"Don't move," Neville ordered, and began the low healing chant Madame Pomfrey had taught him. After a couple of minutes, Snape was feeling better. Not well, but better.

"We have to go," he told Neville, interrupting the chanting. "They may still be fighting downstairs."

With Neville supporting him on the left, Snape made his way to the stairs. A sudden shimmering surrounded them, and Snape raised his wand in fear. _"Occludo!"_ he shouted, not knowing if what he did was good or evil, and the shimmering stopped. At the staircase, with Neville's help, he managed to descend. In front of them, sprawled on the floor, was a body, its face covered in blood. It was Alecto. Snape knelt beside her.

"She's still alive, but I don't understand. It looks like she was running away and tried to apparate. But you can't apparate out of here. She knows that. Unless…" Snape rose. "She felt the spell to lower the defenses. The Dark Lord tried to lower the defenses to escape, and she wanted to take advantage of it. That's when she tried to leave. If she wasn't successful, it may mean he wasn't successful either. Hurry!"

They ran, as much as they were able, to the interview room, then stopped in shock. It was a battlefield, with bodies everywhere. Malfoy lay slumped against a side wall, and Charlie Weasley at the foot of the Dark Lord's chair. There were others, too. Avery and Goyle, Flitwick and Shacklebolt, and Death Eaters who'd fallen defending their lord. And others that Snape didn't stop to identify. He and Neville rushed to the far side of the room where light flashed through an open door.

There were several people inside the room, but Snape registered only three of them: Dumbledore, Harry and, rising in wrath in their midst, the powerful, menacing form of Voldemort.

Even as Snape rushed into the room, Voldemort raised his wand to the ceiling. A half dozen beams of light shattered against the shields he'd formed around him as he shrieked, _"APERIO!"_

"_CLAUDO!"_ Snape shouted, all the remaining strength at his command going into the counter spell. The incipient shimmering ceased. _"SAEPTUM!"_ They were sealed in the room.

"You dare!" Voldemort whirled to face Snape, his shields a rainbow of color as bolt after bolt was deflected. "I will squash you like a worm! _Avada Kedavra!"_

Snape was too slow, but Neville wasn't. He hit Snape below the knees with a flying tackle that brought them both below the beam of the killing curse. Green light struck the wall and showered them with plaster and bits of brick and mortar.

Whatever dynamic of battle had been in the room before, it now changed as Snape became Voldemort's principal target, for until Snape was incapacitated, the apparation barrier could be maintained. Snape dodged, ducked, and rolled, struggling to avoid the bolts as Moody, Lupin, and Yaxley continued to weaken Voldemort's shields.

Neville thrust his own wand forward, but managed only the first syllable, AV-, before Dumbledore seized his wand arm and clapped a hand over his mouth. "No Unforgivable curses, Neville!" Dumbledore ordered. "Remember the prophecy!"

"Prophecy!" Voldemort screamed, turning on Dumbledore now. "No prophecy binds me! You will see what it is to defy me, you and these pieces of filth, these traitors! You and this muggle-loving brat! You will lose! I am of the immortals! There is none of you who can kill me, for I shall rise again as I did before, more powerful than ever!"

"I think not," Dumbledore answered, his calm voice in contrast to Voldemort's. "We destroyed all six soul fragments, Tom. You have no Horcruxes. It is over. Death is a reality you will not be able to escape, even if you escape us today."

"Fool! What makes you think there were only six? I have made a hundred. Kill me now, and you release me to a new resurrection! Did you think I would let your puny efforts stop me?"

"Bluffing will get you nowhere, Tom. There were six, and they are gone. The seventh and last is inside you."

"Because you believed that other fool Slughorn?" Voldemort's laugh was evil incarnate. "If you kill me now, I become more powerful."

"He's lying!" cried Snape. "He showed me in the interview chamber when he was trying to decide how to take the soul fragment out of Harry. It was the only one left!"

"LIAR!" Voldemort's crimson gaze swung around and located Harry, and at once Snape knew the prophecy was coming true. Before he could speak, Voldemort hissed, "You would kill me? Then you will kill him as well!"

Suddenly, Voldemort vanished, and before they could stop it, a vapor, the barest trace of mist, was seeping into Harry's nostrils and mouth. Harry clutched his head and dropped to the floor.

"Go ahead, Dumbledore. Kill me now. Kill me and the Chosen One now." It was Voldemort's voice, speaking eerily through Harry's mouth. "Kill us both, or let us leave. But be quick with your decision. This mudblood's brat is weak and will not last long."

Shoving Moody and Lupin aside, Snape fell to his knees next to Harry and grabbed the boy's head, forcing eye contact. "What are you doing?" Moody yelled, but Dumbledore was there at Snape's back, restraining Moody and keeping the others away.

"No, Alastor," said Dumbledore. "Severus was right. He was fated to be here. It was not chance that brought him to Hogwarts the same year that Voldemort began his first rise to power. This is how it must be."

Gazing deeply into Harry's eyes, Snape was aware of an urgent need for haste. The boy couldn't last long, and it was still possible that Voldemort could abandon a dead body at the last moment and still survive to fight them. The mind that Snape probed, however, was not the mind he expected to see. Where before all had been open and exposed like a wide, grassy field, now Snape encountered doors. There weren't many doors, and all of them were open, but they were unmistakably doors. The thought flicked through Snape's mind, _He's been working on his occlumency. And that's… a partition? Why is his mind partitioned?_

Movement drew Snape's attention past the partition to one of the open doors and to the familiar image of Voldemort, Voldemort peering at him from behind the barrier that was not yet a barrier. _I can't let him go free_, Snape thought, _not now, not in the middle of the prophecy…_ so he reached into Harry's mind and, without pausing to consider how improbably impossible the action was, closed the door, trapping Voldemort behind it.

Voldemort threw himself against the mental door in violent rage, and it was all Snape could do to keep it closed. Harry moaned and opened his eyes of his own accord. "Help me," he whispered.

_I can't_, Snape's mind replied. _He's too strong. I'll hold him as long as I can, but you need to find thoughts, strong thoughts, loving thoughts. I'll hold him as long as I can…_

_I can't. It hurts too much. The thoughts aren't there…_

_Use mine. Look at me._

Harry looked, a conscious legilimency probe, and before Lily's green eyes all of Snape's barriers went down, giving Harry access to memories long concealed and nearly forgotten, small pieces and fragments gleaned over years of living and working in the same building… Hagrid dragging a Christmas tree up the snowy hill… Ron with his face scrunched up as he struggled with an assignment… Ginny smiling… Sirius's face through green flames saying, 'Damn it, Severus, he's Lily's son. I love him,'… Molly Weasley at the door of the Burrow… Hermione concentrating on a spell… Dumbledore rising from the table to say a few words…

Harry grew stronger, seeking out more and more memories, his mind flooding with affection and love. Then not from Snape, but from within Harry himself, a dam burst and Lily was there, radiant and powerful. Her love caressed them both, bound them, all of them, in bands that had come full circle.

Snape released the door he'd fought to keep closed, so that Voldemort could come forth and be bathed equally in the pure light that shone from Lily. She now held them all, the three who had been brought together and tied together by her presence and influence – the boy she had befriended, the son she had borne, and the man who had killed her.

Voldemort emerged, to be illumined by Lily's aura, but what was the cool crystal clarity of sunrise to Harry and Snape was searing fire to Voldemort. He writhed in the flames of her tenderness, unable to endure the touch, yet powerless to flee.

It was as if Harry had suddenly burst into flame. Spectral fire, flickering in tongues of blue and green, danced around his body. Harry cried out and clutched Snape's hands in spasms of pain. Then the room was quiet. Quiet, and suddenly clean again. Snape looked deeply into Harry's eyes and took a slow breath. It was over.

Releasing Harry to the care of the others, Snape crept over to one side of the room and rested against the wall. He was exhausted, but didn't grudge the fact that no one paid much heed to him. Harry needed help more. Neville came and sat beside him, and then Moody walked over.

"You got one more thing to do, boyo, and then you can rest. You got to open up this room."

Snape raised his wand and said, _"Resero!"_ then let the arm fall limply to his side. Lupin stayed with Harry while Dumbledore and Moody went out into the interview chamber. A few minutes later, Dumbledore returned.

"Alastor has been outside. The Fidelius charm is broken and the building is open again. We have sent for a crew from St. Mungo's. Minerva and Poppy are coming, too. Do not move Harry. We must leave that to the healers." He knelt by Snape. "Are you all right, Severus?"

"Tired," Snape replied. "And I ache all over. But nothing serious. Neville?"

"I'm okay, sir."

The healers brought stretchers and began to move out the more seriously injured. Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Pomfrey went with Harry to the hospital, while Moody made sure that the healers knew which Death Eaters had been double agents and therefore needed no restraints. Yaxley apparated to St. Mungo's to help his colleagues, and Lupin accompanied Charlie.

Moody came back into the rear room. "Bet you'd like to know what happened," he grinned at Snape as he settled onto the floor.

"The idea had occurred to me."

"When we came crashing through that charm, all hell broke lose. Alarms ringing everywhere. We headed down here as fast as we could, but we had every Death Eater in the building on our tails. Lucky we kept so many of them out this morning, or we'd have been the losers today. What really helped, though, was nobody knew who was on whose side. At least they didn't. Old Voldy, he was kind of relying on Malfoy and the others to lead the charge, and they pretended at first they were helping him. That was a godsend because it kept them from using Killing curses. By the time they figured it out, Voldy was more concerned with getting out than with fighting. It's a good thing Bella never showed, though. She'd have given us a fight."

"Bella did show. She's upstairs, all tied up like a birthday present."

Moody whistled. "You got her then?"

"Not me. Neville." Snape reached out and patted Neville's shoulder. "He defeated Bellatrix Lestrange."

"I couldn't have done it," Neville sighed, "if I hadn't watched you before. The way you let them think you were beaten in order to surprise them later. I'd have stood up and defied her and gotten both of us killed."

"We'll make a Slytherin of you yet," said Snape.

Moody helped them both to their feet, and together they walked through the interview chamber where the medical team from St. Mungo's was finishing up.

"Are you telling me no one died?" Snape asked Moody, looking around at the disorder.

"We got several badly injured, but so far the only one gone is Voldemort. That plan of yours worked like a charm. You feel like apparating?"

Snape felt like apparating, and together they went to Hogsmeade and from there to Hogwarts. Hagrid, who'd been sent home along with the rest of the secondary team as soon the battle was over, lest he become too conspicuous on that Birmingham street, came lumbering across the grass as soon as he realized who they were and helped Snape and Neville climb the hill to the castle, plying them with questions all the way. It was a great relief to him to hear that Harry was safe, and that Flitwick, Lupin, and Charlie seemed to be all right as well.

Hagrid had the password to get into Dumbledore's office, so the little group went up there to sit comfortably and have a glass of mead. Moody went straight to the fireplace to make a floo connection and was able to report to the others that Shacklebolt's injuries were minor and that he'd already been released from the hospital.

Snape lay down on a sofa, his right arm across his forehead. Both arms felt like lead, but it was a normal kind of weariness, and at last he felt like they really would heal completely. It might even be that the absence, the permanent absence, of the Dark Lord had something to do with it.

The room was comfortably warm, and the murmur of voices soft and soothing. Snape didn't even feel it when Hagrid gently covered him with a light blanket. He was already asleep.

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Snape didn't stay at Hogwarts, despite Dumbledore's assurances that he was welcome to any rooms in the castle. Instead he went home to Lancashire, to wander the moors and take tea with Mrs. Hanson. He even practiced throwing darts until he got to the point where his father's old mates weren't embarrassed to have him play a game or two. More than anything, he wanted his life to be normal, and normal meant nothing that would force him to recall Voldemort or anything to do with him.

Normal wasn't immediately obtainable.

Administrative details took up considerable time. The headquarters buildings in both Croydon and Birmingham had to be closed down, files reviewed and turned over to the Ministry, supplies impounded and inventoried, the gutted and converted shell of the building in Birmingham returned to its former state. In the end both complexes were sold to perfectly respectable muggles, the proceeds from the sales going to aid the families of wizards who'd died in the 'Troubles.'

Next came the trials, and it was not a comfortable time for Snape, carrying as it did the weight of unpleasant memories from his own trial nearly seventeen years early. He spoke in defense of Malfoy and the others, for who understood better than he what transpires in the heart of one who changes sides and must join in a fight against friends and colleagues? There he got the first taste of the rest of his life when the prosecuting barrister asked, "Aren't you the one who was willing to throw Professor Dumbledore off the tower?" All he could say was, 'Yes,' without any details because it wasn't his trial, and it wasn't his past being examined. It left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Malfoy, Avery, Rookwood, Nott, and Crabbe were returned to Azkaban with their original sentences shortened. Goyle and Bennett were sent to Azkaban for only two years. Bella Lestrange had to face the remainder of her life sentence, as did Peter Pettigrew, who whimpered and sniveled and groveled during his whole trial. The chief prosecution witness in his case was Harry Potter himself.

Life now, after three months, finally approaching something resembling normal, Snape began a program of research that he concealed from everyone who asked how and what he was doing. He was checking jobs and careers. Specifically he was looking for things that didn't require a university education, that provided on-the-job training, and that offered an opportunity to use certain less than common skills and talents.

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Saturday, August 22, 1998

It was almost like old times. Snape and Dumbledore sat together in the Headmaster's office, just the two of them, and Snape had a goblet of mead.

It was the first time that either of them had the time to review what had happened in those final minutes in the room behind the interview chamber. At first Snape had refused to relive those moments, and Dumbledore had respected his feelings. The passage of several weeks time had begun to dull the memory, and the mead – Dumbledore's secret weapon – was dulling it even further.

"So all of it was true after all, even that part of it with which you had the most trouble dealing logically. Sibyll would be proud, if she knew."

"The major stumbling block to understanding it," Snape said, contemplating the way the surface of the mead reflected the light, "was the prophecy's total lack of a temporal or spatial reference. It didn't say when or where the two couldn't survive together. Which led us to think it meant any time and any place, when it really meant cohabiting the same space – though that could occur at any time."

"When did you arrive at this conclusion, Severus?"

"I asked Potter about his experience of being possessed by the Dark Lord when the soul fragment was removed, and he told me it had happened before. You might have passed that piece of information on, you know. It could have made things easier."

"Harry never fully described it to me. One of the things I have been pondering is why the prophecy never mentioned you." Dumbledore refilled Snape's glass, even thought it wasn't yet empty. "I shudder to think what might have happened had you not been there. Though looking back at the whole picture, I should have realized."

"What was the whole picture, if I may ask?"

"You have touched at many points, though time at Hogwarts was not one of them for you and Tom. Your mother did not start her first year until long after Tom had left, and the last time he was on the grounds was before your arrival. He did kill Hepzibah Smith in the year before you were born, however – while your mother was pregnant – and he returned from a ten year absence to begin his rise to power in the winter before you were sorted. That was one clue, albeit a small one. The fact that like him you were at the age of eleven already a powerful wizard was another. The physical resemblance was a third. And the muggle background. Looking back on it, I am sure you were meant to be the catalyst. You brought Tom and Harry together. You kept them connected while protecting both…"

"I never protected the Dark Lord!"

"No? Did you ever, at any time, tell me where he might be apprehended, even when the place was not protected by a Fidelius charm?"

Snape didn't answer, and Dumbledore changed the subject. There are some things even mead cannot evoke, and Dumbledore knew when not to insist.

"You are always welcome to stay here, you know. In either the Potions or the Dark Arts position. You would be excellent in both."

"Headmaster, I hate teaching. I didn't hate teaching because of the… because of Voldemort. I hated teaching because I'm not a teacher. Getting rid of Voldemort doesn't change that."

"I don't wish to be rude or cruel, Severus, but where else would you go? Hagrid did mention that the two of you had a chat. It seems that most of the options were ones you would not even consider. At least stay here until you have selected something."

"And have every new student point at me and spread gossip and rumors? Goldfish have more privacy. No, sir. The prison doors have opened, and I'm not staying behind bars any longer than I have to. Maybe I'll travel. Maybe not. But I can't stay here."

"What are you looking for?"

"Something I'm good at. Something that's useful. Something that helps people. I don't want money or fame. I just want to feel that my life has some purpose."

"I'd say your life has already served a great purpose."

"I was correcting mistakes."

"We shall miss you, Severus."

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_Saturday, December 23, 2000_

There was a double wedding at the Burrow two years later, at Christmas time – Ron and Hermione, and Harry and Ginny. Snape didn't go to the wedding, but Russ did.

"Are you what they call a prodigal son?" Luna asked the moment she saw him.

"Good morning, Luna. It's wonderful to see you, too."

"How come you took a pill?"

"Yes, I think it's going to be a lovely day. It might rain in the evening, though."

"Be like that, then. Neville! Hermione! Look! It's Russ!"

If six young people can be said to constitute a swarm, then they swarmed all over Russ at that point, Harry, Ginny, and Ron joining the others. "I'm so glad you could come," Hermione said, and this time Ron didn't resent it because, after all, he was the one marrying her.

The ceremony and the wining and dining of the guests took all day, but in the evening before the brides and grooms set out on their respective honeymoons, a select group stayed to visit for a while, among them Dumbledore, Moody, McGonagall, Hagrid, and Lupin. Russ retired to one of the bedrooms and reemerged as Snape. Drinks passed all around.

"We're glad you could make it, Severus," Arthur said, relaxing into a comfortable chair. "We weren't sure you'd gotten any of our owls. What've you been doing with yourself? Nobody seems to have seen you for the longest time."

"Did you get a chance to travel?" Neville asked. "I've always wanted to see the world."

"I went to San Francisco for a couple of weeks to let everyone know how it all turned out," said Russ. "But most of the time I've been right here in Britain. I've been looking into healing work. My grandmother was a healer, you know."

They talked about their futures. Harry had been accepted into the auror training course and was in his third year.

"Should be a fairly easy job now, right?" Snape said, with just a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

"You never know," Harry replied. "Voldemort started his plotting just about the time Grindelwald was falling. What new first year student just sorted last September might already be on his way to becoming the next Dark Lord?"

"You have me there," said Snape. "Neville, what have you been doing?"

"I've got a job in the apothecary department at St. Mungo's. It's pretty straightforward, and I'm getting a lot of practice, but I don't think I'll stay there. Maybe in a couple of years I'd like to try teaching."

"Teaching? Herbology? Professor Sprout might have something to say about that."

"Well, I was also thinking about teaching Potions. I mean, how hard can it be?" Neville fought to keep the sly grin off his face.

"I came all the way here to endure your impudence?" Snape was smiling a bit, too. "Which reminds me, I brought something for you. I wasn't sure, but since your mind is moving in that direction…" He reached into his robes and pulled out a book. It was his old _Advanced Potions_ textbook with all the annotations. "I don't know if you…"

"Oh, yes, Professor!" Neville exclaimed, his eyes gleaming. "Thank you. It's great!"

Hermione was studying law, and already aiming years in the future at a judge's appointment. Ron was working in his father's department at the Ministry where having a muggle-born wife was a definite asset. Ginny was mostly concerned about getting Harry through his training, but was also looking into healing work.

"And what about you?" Snape asked Luna.

"Silly question. I'll inherit _The Quibbler_, so I'm in journalism. Somebody here has to tell the truth, right?"

Hogwarts was doing fine. Dumbledore did not renew his offer of employment since it was clear that Snape wouldn't accept. Hagrid and McGonagall were about the same as ever. Slughorn had agreed to stay on for a couple of years, so Neville's plans to move soon into his position looked to be right on track. Lupin was now the permanent Defense against the Dark Arts professor, and he and Tonks were expecting their first child, so he left early. Only Moody seemed less than content in what was proving to be a very boring retirement.

Snape stayed until about eight o'clock, and then he left, too.

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Two and a half years later, in May, they had a reunion at Hogwarts. Most of the principal actors in the drama of Lord Voldemort were there. Lucius Malfoy did not come to the reunion, but Draco did, and was welcomed by everyone, especially his former enemies.

Hagrid had especially warm greetings for Harry, who arrived with Ginny clinging rather tightly to her husband's arm and a coy expression on her face. "Ah!" cried Hagrid happily, reading the signs. "Are we going t' be visited by a blessed event soon?"

"I don't know about soon," Ginny smiled. "It seems like a long time to me."

"D' you know yet…?"

Harry grinned. "Not yet, but if it's a boy, he'll be James, and if it's a girl, she'll be Lily." He looked around curiously. "Hagrid, is he… is Professor Snape coming today?"

"I don' know, Harry. Professor Dumbledore says he's got no way of contacting him. I ain't seen nor spoken t' him in nearly two years. Got no idea where he is."

Harry nodded, and joined the others, all sharing reminiscences, Neville especially relishing the reliving of events. Neville did glance at Harry, who shook his head, and for a moment Neville was quiet.

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A few months later, Harry and Ginny were in London. They had first gone to Diagon Alley, but then Harry wanted to walk around London. He was trying to familiarize Ginny with the muggle world since he'd decided that he wanted his children to be part of both. They were looking in the window of a shop selling infant's clothing when they heard the crash around the corner. Like everyone around them, they ran toward the sound, but on turning the corner Harry caught Ginny and insisted she go back. She didn't have to see. Harry went forward as if drawn by a magnet.

A long truck had jumped the divider on the wide, heavily traveled street and crashed into two lanes of oncoming cars. One of the cars was crushed against a wall by the front of the truck. Two other cars had slammed into the truck's side, the driver of one, a woman, thrown partly out of the window of her vehicle, head, arm, and long red hair dangling in an odd, ungainly way. Other drivers and passersby were trying to help the passenger in her car and the people in the other car that had hit the truck. From a seemingly far distance, Harry could already hear the sound of the ambulance sirens.

The first ambulance arrived, and its crew began working. There was a quick check of the woman's vital signs and a paramedic shook his head. She was gone. "Jackson," said one of the others, "check that third car. Gaspari, you check the people in the second. I'll work with the passenger here. Anyone else coming?"

"Two more at least," Gaspari answered. "They're fighting the traffic."

Harry couldn't see much because of the crowd, but he caught a glimpse of the red-haired woman's passenger – a man with dark hair. Then the other ambulances arrived.

"Lacey, good to see you again. Gaspari 'll need help with that middle car. Looks like there's four people in it. Do you know if Brewer's here?"

"He's in the next one."

The paramedic working with the first car's passenger stood. "Brewer!" he called. "Over here a minute!"

Brewer came over, and Harry inched closer in the crowd – pushed, in fact, so that he could see. Brewer knelt and checked pulse and breathing. "How's the blood pressure?" he asked, raising first one eyelid and then the other.

"Pretty normal."

"Check it again. No, don't. We've got internal hemorrhaging. We've got to get him into surgery. Put him in our ambulance, we can get out faster." They put the dark-haired man on a gurney and into the ambulance. Harry grabbed the first paramedic.

"That ambulance, where's it going?" When the paramedic tried to turn away, Harry pleaded, "You don't understand, I know him!" The paramedic gave him the name of a hospital.

Returning to Ginny, Harry asked her to go home. "Something's happened, and I need to find out what, but I can't explain yet. I'll know more when I get home." Ginny nodded in understanding and left. Harry apparated to the hospital.

The ambulance crew was just leaving the emergency room. Harry waited until the one called Brewer went by, then spoke his name. The paramedic stopped.

"The man you just took in," said Harry, "is he going to be all right?"

Brewer lifted an eyebrow. "Are you a family member?"

"No, but… I'd really like to know."

Brewer looked at his colleagues, then at Harry. "They're taking him into surgery. He should be all right."

"What would have happened if you hadn't brought him here right away?"

"He'd probably have bled to death."

"I want to talk to you."

Brewer hesitated, then shrugged. "I'm off duty in a couple of hours. My car's in a parking garage two streets down. There's a coffee shop across the road. I'll meet you there at four."

Harry was there at quarter to four, and at four-ten the paramedic walked in. He saw Harry and came over to the table.

"You look different with short hair," was the only thing Harry could think of to say.

"When in Rome…" replied Brewer.

"And why Brewer?"

Snape smiled. "Come now, Harry. I brew potions. It's just a potion master's name. If it's any consolation to you, I'm still Russ. Russell Brewer."

"You read him, didn't you?"

"Naturally. You don't think I'd let another person die for want of a little legilimency, do you?"

"Do they know? I mean, do the others know?"

"The other paramedics? No. They just think I'm good at triage and on-the-spot emergency diagnosis. If I told them the truth, I'd be fired for being delusional and unsafe."

The two talked over old times, and Harry tried to convince Snape to see more of his old associates. "As long as nobody tries to interfere with my new life. I don't want to have to start over again," Snape replied.

"Deal," said Harry. "But you're coming when the baby's born. You can't shirk all your social obligations."

"Deal," said Snape, and the two shook hands and went, each to his own home and own life.

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Here ends the story.


End file.
